The Price Paid
by defender82
Summary: Before and after the Battle of Serenity. What happened between the laying down of arms and the picking up of passengers. Chapter 8 just added--Mal is learning his trade as a smuggler and getting knifed in the process.
1. Lost Kin

Lost Kin by defender82  
  
This takes place before and after the Battle of Serenity, before there is a ship called Serenity. Mal and Zoe have a history, this is how it started  
  
Lost Kin  
  
She stared at her feet as she trudged through the ever present muck. The walk back from the administration center to the mess hall was the longest trek possible within the confines of the camp. She thought it was probably because experience had shown their captors that the likeliest spot for a riot to begin, given the paucity and quality of the food, was the mess. That would be something they wanted as far from their own living quarters and the armory as possible. Because defeated or not, there were still 100 trained soldier- prisoners for every Alliance guard. It was an interesting thought which Zoe put away to think on later, if necessary. Everywhere they fought, the Feds had superior numbers, better fire power too. They still had the firepower, but no so much on the numbers, now.  
  
When she entered Serenity Valley with Malcolm Reynolds, he was the sergeant, she the corporal, they had a lieutenant and a total complement of 35; three 10-man squads, the lefty, a radioman, medic, Mal and herself. Five days later so many officers were dead Mal was brevetted to Captain and in command of two thousand souls. She was his second.  
  
They held out against overwhelming numbers for near 2 months before the command came to lay down arms. She thought the day the order came down that Mal might lie down and die beside those already fallen. His duty to the living wouldn't let him. By then they were down to less than 500 souls. And there they were left, wounded and sick and dying, for a week while the higher ups settled the terms. Mal had watched and raged and cursed God and the Alliance equally as they just kept dying. It was really that week when Mal began to lose faith. It was the helplessness as more than two thirds of those left fell needlessly. By the time they were Medivac'd out less than 150 were left; none but she and Mal from their original complement. Once they got to the camp Mal had been bound and determined, come hell or high water, every man-jack left was getting out alive. Somehow they'd done it, too. The last trooper from their company had been "repatriated" about 3 weeks ago. Now, the only ones left were Mal and herself.  
  
She had been down to Admin in hopes of getting word on when she and Mal might expect to be released. They had learned that it was better if Zoe went by herself if they were trying to get anything out of the ordinary. Mal couldn't hold his mouth right to make the Feds believe he was properly humble. He'd just stand there looking down his nose at them. It made the Feds feel small and got them nothing. Zoe wouldn't beg but she was a fine looking woman and she could smile and keep her own counsel on the rage in her soul. Mal wore his on his sleeve.  
  
As she entered the mess tent she saw him. Sitting apart from the others in a brown study, staring at the middle distance as if he didn't much care for what he saw there, `And who could blame him?' she thought with bitter amusement. She sat down on the bench across from him and caught his eye as he pushed the meager bowl of molded protein and brown rice across to her.  
  
"A might skimpy in the serving department but I don't have your winsome smile."  
  
"S'okay, Mal, not very hungry anyway."  
  
"Oh." Just the single syllable in comprehension. "Guess, t'was to be expected."  
  
"Yes sir, it's what we heard. No non-coms or officers serving in the same company to be repatriated to the same world. No non-coms or officers to be repatriated to their world of origin or to the world of enlistment." Zoe looked at Mal with an unreadable expression in her soft brown eyes. "Guess we won't be going back to Shadow, or anyplace else together, not yet awhile, anyhow."  
  
Mal looked like he was prepared to start a riot then and there and the foresight of their captors in the matter of locating the armory struck her again. He didn't say anything for a long while. Then "You ain't been close as kin to me for half my life for me to lose you now. We ain't takin' this lying down. Where I go, you go. We're family."  
  
His mama had sent him out after the noon meal to look for the strays. A cow and calf not accounted for. Probably just strayed. She wouldn't have sent him out alone at age 13 did she think it was rustlers or thieves. Still, he had the rifle if it should come to that. He rode in the direction the drovers had brought the herd in and back traced their trail.  
  
About three hours out he came across the cow, her calf beside her, strayed from the trail. Her leg had turned on some rocks and was broke; nothing he could do but put her out of her misery. That was probably the real reason his mama had sent him with the rifle. He couldn't do much about the carcass, but it seemed a shame to waste the meat. So he put the calf across the saddle tree in front of him and rode on to the King spread. Just the two of them there, Zoe and her pa; new `steaders, trying to last out the 5 years on the place with the needed improvements to claim title in freehold. They'd been to the last Founders Day Fair and introduced themselves. Zo was 11, Micah had been the pilot on a deep space trader, her mama had been the engineer. Zoe was born in space and raised there, but Micah had thought she needed a more settled life after her mama died. They were running sheep because they didn't have enough grazing land or capital for a herd. They'd be glad of the beef, make a change from mutton. He knew his mama would tell him not to waste the meat, might as well do somebody some good. He rode into the yard not thinking about much of anything except how maybe he'd stay the night and ride on at first light. That way he could help Zoe's pa with the butchering. Mama wouldn't worry unless he missed dinner tomorrow.  
  
When he saw Zoe sitting on the porch of the soddie he knew right away something was wrong. No fire coming from the chimney, door open and nothin' stirrin', the herding collie they called Shep unmoving with his head on her thigh. She looked like she had been sitting there for a very long time.  
  
Softly he asked "Hey, Zoe, where's your pa?"  
  
She looked at him unseeingly "Papa's in the bedroom. I couldn't move him myself. I was trying to think how I could get him down by that elm near the stream. I think that he'd like to rest there." Then she seemed to shake herself and looked at Mal as if she was seeing him for the first time. "He's been sick for a couple of days. He died early this morning, Przytulski's Flu"  
  
Przytulski's wasn't really like a regular flu, more like a mutated virus. Somehow, in terra-forming Shadow, somebody named Przytulski had brought some innocuous disease that got past quarantine screening and only became deadly here; and then only to about 1 in 80. Micah King had been one of the unlucky. Zoe too come to think of it, so young and already lost her mama and papa. He didn't know what he'd do if he didn't have his mama.  
  
"Can you wait here just a minute, honey? I'll be back in just a bit." He stepped past her into the soddie and past the canvas curtain into the bedroom. On the bed he saw Micah King had been sewn neatly into a shroud made out of the bed sheet. The rest of the place was neat as a pin and a bunch of wild flowerswere resting on his chest. While Mal thought he and Zoe could probably manage to get him out of the soddie; he wanted to see if there was another way so Zoe wouldn't have to remember dragging her papa's body though the dirt to bury him.  
  
He stepped back out and went around back to the sheep pens. There wasn't a real barn but there was a good sized pre-fab shed. It had plastic walls and a floor. They couldn't afford a pre-fab house yet but the shed counted as an improvement and protected their most important supplies from the weather. Inside Mal found what he was looking for, a wheel barrow, used to get hay and feed to the sheep,a shovel and pick.  
  
He took them back to the front porch. She was still there. It looked like she had cried a long time earlier but she was dry eyed now and had been for a while. "Could you show me where you want him to rest?"  
  
Zoe stepped off the porch and led him to the small stream that bordered the eastern edge of the yard. There were a few trees which had flourished on its banks, an elm clearly older than the others, tall and thick. The ground beneath it was soft and loamy from the shade and fallen leaves. He took the pick and started. After a moment, without saying anything, Zoe picked up the shovel and helped him dig. There were no large scavenging animals on Shadow, hadn't been needed for the ecosystem, so it didn't have to be deep. Just enough to cover him. After awhile Mal stopped.  
  
"That's deep enough, bao bei. You go pen them sheep in with the calf and seeabout leavin' some feed out and getting some water in the trough. Enough for 3 or 4 days. Someone'll come back in that time to see to things, but we can't take `em with us. I'll get him down here and call you when its time."  
  
Zoe whistled Shep to heel and went to pen the sheep. Mal waited `til she was around the back then got the wheelbarrow and rolled it in to where Micah's body lay. He managed to get the body on the barrow and roll it across the yard. It was a bit harder to get it laid out seemly in the grave. He finally had to jump in the grave himself to lower the body and make it straight. After that was done, he washed at the well and went to get Zoe.  
  
It was late summer and they still had some light, but it was starting to get what Mama called "dusty dark" when they went to read the words. Mal found the service in Micah's Book of Common Prayer --Unto your hands we commend thespirit of your servant, Micah King, in the sure and certain hope of the Resurrection and the Life of the world to come: ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The Lord make his face to shine upon him and give him peace, Amen."  
  
Zoe sang a hymn,--Amazing Grace. Mal had never heard it before and he thought it just about the saddest and most beautiful thing he'd ever heard. Like to broke his heart. Zoe said it came down more than 700 years from Earth-That-Was. After the words they went back to the house and sat on the porch.  
  
"Zoe, we need to go back to our place but we can leave in the morning iff'n you want."  
  
"No, Mal,-- I don't want to sleep tonight where my papa died. Rather sleep out under the stars, if it's just the same."  
  
"Fine by me, bao bei, but we need to get started. Could you put some things together, what ever you'll need for a couple of days. Like I said, someone'll be back for the rest in a bit. Oh, and a sleeping bag or bed roll. I only got the one."  
  
He went into the kitchen and found some bread, cheese and apples and stuffed them into an old rice sack then tied it around the pommel of his saddle. Zoe came back carrying what looked to be her school pack. She was carrying 2 books besides the bible. She saw him looking and said "These were Papa's favorites." She stuffed them in as Mal climbed into the saddle and leaned down to pull her up behind him. They rode out with Shep at their heels.  
  
They spent the night on the trail. He had thought to push straight on since Shadow's second moon was high, but Zoe fell asleep against his back and he was afraid she might fall. So they slept by a small fire Mal made, more for the cheerfulness of the flames than any need for warmth. They rode in about mid-morning. His mama was on the porch, clearly half expecting him, a tall woman with soft brown hair and Mal's deep blue eyes, handsome rather than pretty. She looked troubled and sad and knowing all at once when she saw Zoe.  
  
"I've brought Zoe home, Mama."  
  
"She's as welcome as lost kin, son" was all Rhiade Reynolds had said as she held her arms open to receive the grieving child who slipped into them as easily as if she had always been there. And with no more fuss than that, Zoe had slipped into Mal's life  
  
The End My first ever posted story. Any input gratefully accepted. I am not sensitive.  
  
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	2. A Dish Best Served Cold

**_Thanks to Archer for his always insightful beta.  All errors are mine.  I appreciate critical commentary.  Chinese Glossary appears at the end._**

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**_CHAPTER TWO—A DISH BEST SERVE COLD_**

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**_PRESENT DAY  * * * * *_**

Most everybody in camp assumed they were lovers.  They didn't enlighten anybody 'cause it saved them both from attentions neither was particularly interested in receiving.  When they first arrived it was mid-winter, there were no huts, no heat and no privacy.  They had shared a bedroll, his blanket underneath, hers on top, and huddled together for warmth.  Nothing passionate about it, except the passionate desire not to freeze to death, and Mal was just glad Zoe didn't snore, much.  When their own chaplain tried to talk to him about the immorality of the situation he laughed mirthlessly and pointed out that any god who let thousands of innocent soldiers die hellishly _after_ the surrender was in no position to question his morals in choosing who to bed.  After that conversation the assumption was set in stone, even after the huts went up and they went back to sleeping in separate bunks if not separate rooms.

Now Mal looked at Zoe across the table.  The news was bad but not unexpected and it was the chaplain's remark about making her an honest woman (as if Zoe would have any need of that if the _were grappling) which tuned his mind in the direction it was presently headed.  Only he was a mite worried that Zoe wasn't going to be happy with his plan.  But it was a plan that would get them out of the camp __together.   He didn't want to waste a year or two getting back together.  Hell, they could do it but this way would make it unneedful.  _

 The klaxon calling for the after-chow count woke him from his reverie.  He shook himself and lounged to his feet. He looked down at her and said "I got some thinking to do on this, meanwhiles we need to see if we can get to the back of the line, 'stead of the front.  No good getting out of here in a rush if they're sending us hell's half acre apart.  Got a notion, but I need to do some checkin' before I'm ready to speak on it."  He reached out a hand to pull her up.

"You're not gonna do anything without talking to me first?  Are you, _sir?" She always added the "sir" with just a touch of irony._

Mal smiled, not his _devil-may-care-lets-raise-a-little-hell-because we're-here _smile.  Just his _I-hear-you-and-I-might-listen-but-maybe- not smile.  He saw her realize that was the best she was gonna get right now, so she let it go; time came, she'd push, but he'd be ready for her by then.  He just _had _to make Zoe see it his way.  _

They went out the assembly area in the center of the camp and lined up for the count that the Feds did 5 times a day, at reveille, taps and after each meal.  The number of prisoners was way down from the camp's peak.  Mostly those left were non-coms, officers, troublemakers of one sort or another, and those whose home planets the Alliance had scourged, so they had no home to go to.  

So far neither of them had been a troublemaker.  Not from lack of desire to inflict pain on the Feds, but because 'til Mal had seen all his troops sent home, his duty to his men came first.  Now it was just the two of them things might change in that department.  Maybe not, if he could find another way out of this _se-niou_ hell hole,_ together_. After Count he left Zoe in their shared room and went down to Admin to do some checking.  There was a Purple-belly clerk in records with a small gambling problem that he thought might be turned to their advantage.  Maybe.

Before taps, at the end of the evening count was mail call.  They didn't usually get much mail.  They had heard from Mama only 3 times, letters written on each of their birthdays and one at Christmas.  All had clearly been written unaware that they were prisoners of war.  Probably if she knew the mail would be more regular she would have written more frequently.  This time the Alliance corporal called out "Malcolm Reynolds or Zoe King".  Mal stepped up to get a letter and a small package.  Hard mail, not waves.  Couldn't be cluttering up the Cortex with mail for trash like Independent prisoners of war. 

They walked away together and went back to their hut.  Mal sat on her bunk and Zoe curled up beside him.  The package had the earlier post-date and was in his mother's hand, so he opened it first after a nod from her.  On top of the packing material in the small plastic box was a letter.  Mal opened it and started reading.  Zoe read it over his shoulder finishing a little sooner than he did and waiting for him to turn the page.

_My Dear Children,_

_   We just received word that you are among the prisoners taken at the __Battle__ of __Serenity__ _Valley___.  Although we give thanks for your safety, our rejoicing is tempered with sorrow as we have been informed by the __Alliance__ Occupation Authority that neither of you will be allowed to return to Shadow.   _

_   I have thought on what is best to do.  I couldn't consult you, my children, so if I have done wrong, I ask you to forgive me.  I have sold half the ranch and Zoe's homestead and banked the money in your names at the Alliance Bank of Credit and Commerce on Persephone.  Your middle names are the password. If you do get separated you can use some of the money to rejoin each other.  It should leave you a small stake, not as much as I'd hoped, but I sold to good folk, who'll love the land and be good to the people hereabouts, not __Alliance__ speculators._

_   I have put the rest of the ranch in trust for you and the drovers because if the Feds try to confiscate the property of known Independents they would be left with nothing after having spent their lives here.  I know you will understand.  Jimmy Chiang is trustee for your shares if anything happens to me. He's been top hand here almost all your life and loves you like his own.  He will give you an accounting if you ask, but you won't need to._

_   I have enclosed for Zoe, her papa's watch and mama's wedding ring. To you son, I have sent your Daddy's ring that was his daddy's before him.  It is very old.  I know you don't have many memories of him but I loved John Reynolds something fierce, couldn't find any man after I could love as much, except you.  He would be very proud of the man you have become.   It's like to break my heart that we may never see each other again but know wherever in the 'Verse life takes you it takes my love with you. God be with you both._

_All my Love_

_Rhiade_

Mal could hear the laugh in his mama's voice as clearly as if she was in the room, when he read the part about the 'middle names'.  Neither he nor Zoe had a real one but his mama had told him from his small kid time that his middle name was just Trouble, plain and simple.  When Zoe first came to live with them she'd been a quiet scrap of a thing.  Later when she got more comfortable and they came to know her they found out she had a wicked sense of humor.  But just at first she had glided like a wraith thru the house and Rhiade had joked that her middle name was Silence.  Later, when no matter what trouble Mal got them into Zoe never blamed him or complained about it, the name still seemed to fit.

Mal turned to the next letter.  It was written in Mandarin.  It was signed with Jimmy Chiang's chop but the language was so formal he couldn't hear the older man's voice in his head like he had with Mama's words.  His Mandarin was rusty, it took him awhile to parse out the meaning.  

_Honorable Son of a Noble Ancestress:_

_   It is with great sorrow that I must inform you of the death of your respected mother.   She was held as hostage for the good conduct of a band of dishonorable thieves whom the Alliance Governor, lying son of a mongrel bitch, claimed were Independent rebels.  _

_   The bandits being mere thieves raided the provincial capital. The Magistrate, may he die 10,000 deaths, ordered your mother's execution.  He planned to steal your patrimony by declaring her a rebel but the sagacity of your honorable parent was proven when the property he coveted was discovered be held in trust.  May she live forever in the pavilions of heaven!_

_   This lowly person was permitted to speak to her on the eve of her death and her thoughts were only of you.  She requested that you do nothing to avenge her that will cost you your lives and commanded me not to reveal the name of the cur who ordered this cowardly act. Despite her injunctions, I believe that filial piety requires that you know the miserable dog that you may curse his name.  It is Marcus Avery.  I urge you to use caution in seeking justice and remind you some dishes are best served cold._

_   I have scattered her ashes as she wished, upon the winds above the pass to the __Western__Mountain__.  It is where we set your father's soul free those many years ago.  _

_   When you call upon me I will make a careful accounting of my stewardship._

_Respectfully,_

_James Yu Sen Chaing_

When the meaning of the words finally pierced him like a knife through his vitals, he exploded with the rage which had been pent up and dammed for nearly a year.  He beat the walls and overturned his bunk, cursing God and man.  _"Wuh de tyen _Chao-shang___ tza-jiao duh tzang-huo.  NO!  NO!!  _Wu de ma_ I'll kill the  _ta___-ma-de hwu dan.  _Mu___ qin nî hâo mêi, you can't be dead!  __Duìbùqî__, _mà___ mà, _duìbùq___!   I'll kill the murdering swine by inches!  I swear by my life!   I'll end the son of a bitch."_

Numbly, Zoe took the letter and translated the Chinese characters for herself.  From the time she slipped down the back of Mal's horse into her arms, Rhiade had been her shelter as well as Mal's.  The only mother she could clearly remember.  Now she was gone and Mal was cursing God and an Alliance that made war on women and stole a man's planet.  He rammed his hands into the wall of the hut over and over till both were bleeding and she was afraid he'd broken them. She watched the last flicker of his faith go out, finishing the job started that day in Serenity Valley. He cried and raged and swore that he'd never pray again, he'd have no truck with any God who would kill a good woman like Rhiade Reynolds.  

In later years she thought that if she hadn't been there that day crying with him and talking to him softly, as to a child, as he finally slid down the wall in exhaustion, head on his knees and sobs wracking him, he would have gone out and tried to kill as many Feds as he could.  To take to hell with him, as an honor guard for Rhiade.  So she was always glad, when she thought about it in after times, that she had been there. 

After he had cried himself out, after the red rage, when the despair and guilt set in and it was already so dark she couldn't see her hand in front of her face, she got him up and into her bunk.  She pulled his head onto her shoulder and sang _Amazing Grace_, soft and low as a lullaby.  She rocked him like a child, held him and prayed to herself that this time he wouldn't break either.  Because if he broke then so might she.

She awoke in the darkness to find they were both still in her bunk though somehow in the night he'd made room for her to lie beside him.   She felt him pulling her in to him.  She could feel his arousal as he started to move against her, he was kissing her neck softly and murmuring as he worked his way down to the cleft between her breasts and fumbling at the buttons of her trousers. She thought she heard him murmur '_Polly'.   She held herself very still for a moment and then said softly "Mal, honey, wake up __bao_ bei_.  You need to wake up now."  She hated to bring him back to the misery and agonizing grief that their life had become, but if she was gonna' make love with Malcolm Reynolds they were both, by Sweet God, gonna' know who they were in bed with and she didn't think he did; not right at this moment._

He came to himself slowly, struggling to surface from whatever depths grief had taken him to.  When he came awake and realized where his hands and mouth were and what his body was doing, he threw off the blankets and tried to roll out of the bunk but she was on the outside.  He retreated as far from her as he could, which wasn't very far in the narrow bunk, before the wall brought him up short.  

"_Tianna, __gu__ zao de. Zoe, I'm so sorry, Gorram it!   I didn't mean it, did I hurt you _xin___ gan?  I'm a lecherous hump!  But I didn't know—I was dreaming—I didn't know it was you.  Did I hurt you? _Duìbùqî_! _Duìbùqî___! __Ni meí shì bà? _

"_Wô__ hên hâo, Mal.  Nothing happened, yet."_

"Yet?  _Yet_?  Aint nothing gonna happen, neither.  You got my word on that Zoe.  This here is—well I ain't rightly sure what this thing is, but whatever it is ain't gonna' happen, I can tell you that!"

She leaned in and gently took his face in both her hands.  She kissed him softly on the mouth, breathing his name into the kiss. "Mal, 'sokay.  I don't mind, I'm willin', honey.  I just wanted to make sure you knew whose bed you were in."  

His face twisted with grief and guilt.  She could feel that he wanted her, wanted to purge his grief and longing in her body, wanted it more than she would have thought possible even the day before.  He wanted it, but he wouldn't take it.  

"Zoe, not mindin'—that aint near enough.  If I ever were to take you to bed there'd have to be a whole lot more than just not minding to it." 

She wanted so much to take some of his pain away; it wasn't about lust or passion for either of them at that moment, it was about giving and belonging. 

"I'm happy to, honey, it's such a little thing.  Won't change the way I feel about you—about us.  I know you fancy me sometimes, Mal, we slept under the same blanket often enough for me not to be mistaken"  

"_Nah mei guan shi_.  It's different with a man, Zoe.   _Nî__ hâo mêi.--A man would have to be made of stone not to notice and where a man notices his body betrays him.  We're weak vessels.  But what you'n I got, it's more important than sex.  Sometimes I don't even know I'm me unless you tell me so.  What'd Mama call it? 'a shared soul'?  I'd never risk losing the only soul I got left.  Not for anything."_

Serious now, so that he'd see she meant it, because she did.  Her love for him wasn't passion but if that's what he needed she'd gladly give it.  She'd seen it often enough in battle.  When death was all around, the drive to be close to anyone alive was sometimes overpowering.  

"I said nothin' would change the way I feel about us, Mal.  It's something I can give you, don't cost me a cent. There's so much been taken away from you.   I _want to give you something, for all the things you've given me.  A home, when I had none, a mother, a place to call my own, wouldn't have any of that but for you.  It's such a small thing to give back."  _

"That's the problem, girl.  Between us it shouldn't be a small thing.  If it was gonna happen at all, it should be the most important thing in the world to both of us."  He said very gently as if only just discovering it for himself.  

"Oh Mal!"

"Shh—hush now, _bao__ bei, Let me say this.  It ain't easy.  I want you Zoe, I want to accept what you're offerin', I do!  But if I did it might cost me you in the end and I'm not willing to pay that price.  Any other price, I'd pay and not count the cost.  But I can't risk losing you.  I'm part of your past, Zoe, you're part of mine.  We got history.   I plan to always be in your life,—but I'm not your future, not any woman's anymore, I 'spect.—Some day you're gonna meet the fella that holds your future.  Comes the day, it's gonna be hard enough to share you with that man, I want try to be happy for what you'll be gaining, not bitter at what I'd be losing."_

"_Méi__ guänxi, dong ma."   She said the words regretfully, wishing she could do this thing for him, but understanding he wouldn't let her.  _

She lay silently beside him for a space of time before he startled her, saying quietly, just as if he was asking her to pass the biscuits, "So that being said, I'm asking you to marry me."  

She goggled at him, sputtering, "_Pien__ doh juh juh tyaren.  __Ee_-chi shung-hoo-shi! _ Did I just miss something?  It's that same problem you always have with your brain bein' missin'!  You're talking craziness now."_

Urgently, desperate to convince her "Just hear me out.  I went down to Admin after chow and I got a look at the "Repatriation Regs."  There is one exception to the separation requirement for officers and non-coms in the same unit, and that's if they're married.  Every _qingwa__ cào de liúmáng in this camp, Alliance and Independent, thinks we're doing it like bunnies.  No one it'd give it a second thought if I let the chaplain save my soul and your virtue by tying the knot.  Then we apply for repatriation to Persephone or as near as we can get to it and 'Bob's your uncle'.  _

"It don't feel right.  Something about it bothers me."

"Gawd almighty, Zoe, not five minutes past you were ready to give me a roll in the hay and call it nothing.  Now I'm asking a little thing like this and '_it don't feel right_'?  It don't change a gorram thing, _bao__ bei.  We're family; we love each other and do for each other, same as if we were husband and wife.  I'd die for you, just like I know you'd do for me.  You're the only home I got.  We got us a bond.  I can't help it if the only bond these __huh choo-sheng tza-jiao duh tzang-huo recognize is marriage.  It don't change a gorram thing.  It's a way off is all.  You can have it annulled the day we hit dirt iff'n you want.  __It's a way off together!" _

In his need to convince her he took her face in both his hands and stared into her eyes.  She looked back into his troubled eyes searchingly.  In the darkness the deep blue of his eyes seemed black, she felt like she might drown in them.  What she saw there convinced her of his desperation, everyone else was getting out alive and for him that meant with Zoe at his side.  

"_If_—I say, _if, I agreed to this who's to say that Feds won't say they meant marriages contracted __before enlistment?"_

Sensing her weakening, he said even more urgently, "I thought of that, I got a clerk lined up in the records unit'll back date the marriage lines to the week before our enlistment."

"He will, huh!  And what will that service cost us, which, by the way, we ain't got any of?"

"He'd take my daddy's ring." He said speculatively

"Oh, Mal, no!"  Zoe took a ragged breath, her fingers found the velvet pouch he had given her earlier.  Inside was Papa's pocket watch.  After her mama died he had soldered her ring to the end of the chain and wore it tucked thru his vest button to hold the watch in place.  The first thing he did every morning and last thing at night was kiss that ring. It was tied up in her mind with ideas love and permanence and commitment even after death and now he wanted to give up _his father's only legacy. "It's not fair."_

Mal didn't seem to see it that way "Gorram it, Zoe, keep your eye on the prize, here.  That ain't nothin' but a piece of metal, a way out is all.  Anything I got of my daddy, I got through knowing my mama.  What's the point of having a keepsake and losing you?  Anyways, he could hold it as a pledge and I could redeem it after we get to Persephone.  There's a chance he won't gamble it away, not a large one I admit.  Howsomever that might be, it's well spent if we get out of here _together.  _Are you discerning a pattern here to my thinkin', woman?  _Together—out.  Out Together. Dong ma?" _

He added with that crooked smile and cocked eyebrow which got them into so much trouble since they were kids "So, _wo__ nén qin ni tiào wu ma...? _

With a sense of surrendering to the inevitable she said, "_Wuh__ de tyen, yes, alright, yes, gorram it!" _

"Shiny, that's settled then."

After that they didn't talk any more, they just held each other until exhaustion claimed them.  Mal was awake already when she opened her eyes.  He looked like he had been awake most of the night.  He hadn't broken, quite, but any softness left had been burned out of him.  He was gentle with her, though, as he said quietly, "We _are goin' to get out of here—together, Zoe.  Then we are going to hunt down that murdering son of a whore and when we're finished with him there won't be anything left to bury."_

"Rhiade wouldn't want you to buy his death at the price of your life, Mal.  You have to honor her wishes in this thing."

"We're gonna do this smart, because the best revenge for Mama is for us to go on livin' and bein' free.  So we gotta have a plan.  I swear to you Zoe, I won't do nothin' 'til we got a plan that lets us do that.  But once you agree we got a way to do this, gives us a chance to be free after, will you--?"

"--I loved her too, Mal.  You got a way, gives us a decent chance we ain't squandering our lives, I'm your girl.

"You always were, _bao__ bei."_

**_ IN THE BEFORE  * * * * *_**

He and Jimmy Chiang taught her to shoot and track that first summer.  She was good with a rifle, eventually better than he was.  He was always the better with a handgun.  By the second summer she could rope and ride as well as any boy. Mama said they shared one soul.  He was the reckless half, always coming up with a way to get them hurt, maimed, or in trouble.  She was the deep thinker, the one who thought up ways to get them out again. 

It wasn't that she didn't have a mind of her own or that she'd follow him blindly; like the time he wanted to swing across the creek on the kudzu vine.  She'd taken one look and said, "Won't take my weight, certain sure it won't take yours."

"Will too!"

"Tell you what, Malcolm Reynolds, _you swing across and when you fall and break your arm, __I'll come down there and get you out."  And sure enough he had and she did.  _

That first night he brought her home, Mama put her in his upper bunk and there she stayed for the first couple of years.  At night after they turned off the light he'd open his mind to her.  He told her all his schemes and plans.  At first she just listened, but as her grief subsided and she started to feel at home, she opened her heart in return.  Later when he got interested in girls it seemed natural to tell her all about that too.  He was popular with the misses, well set up and well spoken, his mama had seen to that.  And living with Mama and Zoe, he was a great respecter of women.  Not that he was above stealing a kiss or even more if it was offered, but no lass was ever the worse for Malcolm Reynolds' attention.   Zoe never seemed to mind who he was sparking, maybe because he'd never let it change what they had.  Sometimes the girls minded about Zoe but those girls didn't last long.

When she was rising 13 and starting to fill out Mama had moved her to her own room, but every night he still came in at bedtime, usually to find her reading some book of her father's about faraway places.  They'd chew over the day.  It seemed like nothing ever happened for real until he had talked it over with her.  By the time she was fifteen the boys were taking notice of her as well.   He wasn't as generous as she was.  It bothered him when some hayseed ploughboy or shiftless drover looked at her or tried to pull her into the barn at some dance.  It wasn't that he had those kinds of feelings for her; he just didn't think most of the boys trying to court her were good enough for her. She just pretended she didn't notice and went on about her business, until eventually he'd get over it.  The boys she took to were always decent types, really, he supposed.

One time at a harvest party he'd come out of the hay loft with Polly McNamara where they'd been doing more than kissin', but not as much as he would have liked; to find a new 'steader with too much cider in him trying to take liberties that Zoe didn't seem to want taken.  By the time Polly and Zoe got him pulled off that fella', the boy had a broken nose, concussion and was lucky he had only lost the one tooth.  He thought he might be in some trouble over that, but Mama only said "Best teach Zoe how to stop that kind of attention for herself. It'll cause less ruckus at the next party."  

So he'd asked one of the drovers to teach them both some ju jitsu.  She'd actually been better at that than he was, neat and precise in her movements.  He just liked the ruckus of an all out fist fight so he taught her that himself.  When they came back from that lesson he had a split lip and she had a shiner.  After that if any man tried anything Zoe didn't invite, he only tried it once.

By the time he was nineteen the perennial friction with the central planets had heated up.  There were tariffs on the export of beef and on the import of technology goods.  The federal authorities had got heavy handed in trying to curb smuggling and blockade running and several of the boys he and Zoe had grown up with were starting to go off planet to join the Independents.  He started listening to the older folks talk politics more and more.  Zoe seemed to have a better grasp of the economics of the thing.  To him it was more a sense that a man ought to be able to steer his own course and live free.   

That year a new federal governor arrived on Shadow.  He brought with him a larger than usual garrison force made up of the scrapings of the Alliance brigs.  Shadow was not considered a _desirable posting.  They took to making patrols of the area ranches to enforce the federal ban on exporting livestock without a license.  One such had arrived at Polly McNamara's house when the menfolk were driving the herd to the winter pasture.  The troops were ill-trained and resentful of the duty; the lieutenant in charge was green.  Some of the troopers tried to steal a kiss and when Polly resisted it got out of hand.  They raped her, then realizing what it meant, they strangled her and fired the house.  _

Her men came home to find her little brother just alive enough to tell them what happened.  They sent word to the neighboring spreads of the need for justice.  He and Zoe had ridden out, tight lipped, to join them only find the work done and the men hanged.  The governor set fire to the tinder when he declared martial law and ordered all the McNamara men over the age of 16 summarily executed for treason.  The whole planet revolted.  He and Zoe rode with the militia until the planet was securely Independent.  After that there was some thinking to be done.

It was spring and there was a promise of new life everywhere he looked, the morning he came down to tell Mama and Zoe that he was going off-world to enlist in the Regulars.  Mama was at the stove and he walked up and put his arms around her waist, leaning down to rest his chin on her shoulder and put a hand in each of her apron pockets 

"Whatcha' cooking, _mêilì_ that smells like heaven on earth?"

"_Jiao-zi.   A man goes to off to war ought to leave with the taste of a meal in his mouth that will bring him back after the fightin's over.  Don't you think?" she said over her shoulder as she popped a dumpling in his mouth._

"How'd you know, _mu_ qin_?" he mumbled around the scalding mouthful._

"_Yen duh sh tyen tsai_, I've been your mother 20 years, Mal."  She laughed at the thought of him trying to keep anything a secret from her. 

_"Gu nian zhong de gu nia.  _Duìbùqî_ ! I should have known you'd be on to my sly ways.  _ Ni meí shì bà?_  He wanted her blessing._

"_Méi__ guänxi.   No mother wants to send her son to war, __bao__ bei._  Xiâoxin_, that's all I ask.  Don't take foolish chances.  Can you do that for me?"  Her deep blue eyes were troubled as she gave him the permission he craved._

"_Hao__ ba,mà mà ."_

"I mean it, Mal, _bèn_ dàn_!" , she said, raising the wooden spoon as if to hit him with it._

"_Dong ma!"_

"Have you told Zoe yet, son?" she asked meaningfully.

He looked guiltily at her. "Not to say _told her, hinted around some.  Hell, __mà_ mà_, Zoe knows when I'm gonna' sneeze before I have a cold.  Won't come as a secret to her, I'm thinking."_

Zoe came down the stairs as if conjured by her name.  She was dressed for the trail.  She had her pack slung over one shoulder and her rifle resting in the bend of her elbow.  "Nothing you do is a surprise to me, Malcolm Reynolds.  Although the reverse is frequently true"

He looked at her and started to grin.  He could feel the laughter welling up inside as he said "Woman, I am the first to admit you can be a mystery!  Where you think you're off to?"

"Do you really need to ask?  By the bye, Rhiade, you owe me 5 yuan.  I told you he'd tell you before he did me."

"Have the two women closest to my heart been discussing me in my absence?" He asked with mock indignation.

Zoe smothered a laugh as his mama replied "Honey, it's the only way we discuss you!"  Zoe added her two cents, "_Lìngrén__ jingyì! Did you really think you could go off planet, to war no less and leave me behind?  __Chunrén ! Who'd keep you out of trouble?" _

"Aw—Zo, I couldn't ask you to--"

"Shiny, so you didn't—I'm still coming, so you can leave it at that."  

And he had. 

To be continued—Next Chapter  Let No Man Put Asunder

Chinese Glossary

_se-niou_ [crap-piss]

_Wuh__ de tyen [Dear God in Heaven] _

_chùsheng__ xai-jiao de xiang huo [the animal-fucking bastard]_

W_u de ma [Mother of God]_

_ta_-ma-de___ hwu dan [mother-humping son of a bitch] _

_Mu__ qin ni hao mei,  [Mother you're so beautiful] _

_Duibuqi__ mà mà   duibuqi [I'm sorry, Mama, I'm sorry] _

_Tianna__, gu zao de [Oh God This can't get any worse.]_

_xin__ gan [sweetheart]_

_Duibuqi__! Duibuqi! Ni mei shi ba?  [I'm sorry!  I'm sorry! Are you okay?]_

_Nah mei guan shi_ [That has nothing to do with it] 

_Wo__ hen hao [I'm fine] _

_ni__ hao mei   [you're so beautiful] _

_Mei__ guänxi, dong ma [its okay, I understand.] _

_Pien__ doh juh juh tyaren: [You are not very rational]   _

_Ee__-chi shung-hoo-shi [Let's take a deep breath]_

_qingwa__ cào de liúmáng [frog-humping sumbitch]_

_huh__ choo-sheng tza-jiao duh tzang-huo [mongrel scum] _

_wo__ nen qin ni tiao wu ma...?  [may I have the pleasure...?]_

_Wuh__ de tyen [Dear God in Heaven] _

_meilì  [beautiful] _

_Jiao-zi_   [pan-fried dumplings a New Year specialty] 

_mu__ qin [mother] _

_Yen duh sh tyen tsai_ [you really are a genius] 

_Gu__ nian zhong de gu nia [You are a woman among women].   _

_Ni meí shì bà?_ [Are you okay?]

_Mei__ guanxi  [It's okay] _

_Xiaoxin_ [be careful] 

_Hao__ ba  ma ma  [Okay/sure, mommy] _

_ben__ dan! [you idiot!]_

_Lingren__ jingyi  [amazing] _

_Chunren! [Jerk!]_


	3. Let No Man Put Asunder

**_Thanks again to Archer for his beta and LJC for technical assistance in posting.  Customary disclaimers apply.   All comments are welcome.  Please do not archive without permission._**

****

**_CHAPTER THREE—LET NO MAN PUT ASUNDER_**

****

**_PRESENT DAY  * * * * *__  
  
          _They were awkward with each other as they arose and subdued as they went to get the protein mush that was the usual breakfast ration.  When she'd asked him when he wanted to do the thing, he'd told her the sooner the better and how was between evening chow and taps? **

"Guess I'd better go see to my trousseau, then."  She said with what could only be called gallows humor. "I'll see you after chow.  Oh, and Mal,--"she said with one eyebrow lifted.

"Hmmm?" his mind already on the ways and means.

"If you mean to marry me, you better shave"

"Gorram it, Zoe!"

He went to have a word with the chaplain.  The Shepherd was happy to marry them, even after it was explained that there would have to be some creative history with the dates.  The jiggery-pokery didn't bother him.  After all he _was_ a chaplain in the Independent Army.  He seemed to see it as putting them right with God.  That didn't sit right with Mal and he felt compelled to say "Best you know Shepherd; I'll be making any promises that need to be made in this thing to Zoe, not to God." 

"Of, course, Sergeant, the Sacrament of Marriage is always a covenant between two individuals." The chaplain said with a display of gentle dignity.

"Just so you know, I don't believe in any God who'd do what's been done here."  Dignity or no, he wanted the record clear on his feelings about this situation.

"That's all right son, God believes in you and he is infinitely patient.  He'll wait for you to forgive him." 

He'd walked away gritting his teeth, it hadn't seemed wise to argue when he'd got his way.  As it was, he bartered for a shower and he'd shaved and combed his hair.  Then he went down to the Admin compound and lifted a rose from the Commandant's garden when no one was looking.  It was a white rose.  He figured every gal ought to have flowers on her wedding day.

Neither of them went to chow so he saw her in the chapel before taps.  He was wearing his class A's and brought along the requisite two witnesses, pilots from the Brown Angels he'd been spendin' time with lately.  He was fast developing an interest in deep space transports.  When he first saw Zoe in the Chapel, his breath caught in his throat as he thought, _"I'd forgotten how beautiful she is."_ She'd had a bath and her hair was out of its customary braid.  Soft curls fell around her face like a halo.  She had on some soft silky blouse in a deep rose color, with her uniform trousers.  He remembered the liberty she'd gotten it, years ago.  She'd carried it at the bottom of her duffle bag like a promise to the future ever since.  She wore her father's pocket watch as a pendant. 

In the end the words were surprisingly appropriate and he'd been able to say them without any hesitation or mental reservations. "I, Malcolm, take thee, Zoe, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death. This is my solemn vow."

He thought Zoe didn't mind them so much after all, either.  When the chaplain had asked about a ring, before Mal could say they didn't have one, Zoe had handed him a chaste gold band.  Mal recognized it as her mother's.  Then the Shepherd had said "Those whom God has joined together let no man put asunder."  And for Malcolm Reynolds, no truer words were ever spoken.  He pitied the man that tried to put them asunder.

****

**_LATER * * * * *_**

****

Although it took some time for the ink to dry on the wedding certificate doctored by the fed in the clerk's office, getting on the repatriation roster hadn't been that difficult.  What was taking some ingenuity was getting the right billet.  Meaning, in their case, Persephone.  They didn't have any coin to use as a sweetener so it had fallen to Zoe to try to get them on the right list.  She'd smiled and flattered and shown a little cleavage, much to his disgust.  She'd been right irritable when he'd complained.  

"_Made!_ Juh hen sh guh kwai luh duh jean jan_.  I just love having a lecherous Fed looking down my blouse!  This is all we got Mal, if I can stand doing it, you can stand to watch.  Or go away and don't watch, just leave me to get on with it.  __Tian_ xia shuo you de ren dou gaisi_! _

He'd been instantly contrite, "Zoe, I'm a _jing__ tzahng mei yong duh liou mahng.  I got no call to make this harder on you.  I'll behave."  And he'd done the best he could by being elsewhere when she did the needful.  _

So here they were, finally, out of the POW camp waiting in a queue at the 'Relocation Center'.  Hoping to convince yet another petty Alliance bureaucrat that they still needed to go to Persephone, not Whitefall, or some other god-forsaken jerkwater moon with a chronic labor shortage.  He looked over at Zoe and noticed how drawn she was.  She hadn't been sleeping lately.  The nightmares were real bad for her right now.  Surprisingly, his had eased off once they had a plan.  He still got them but they weren't as bad, they were the kind you could wake up from at least.  Hers had gotten worse after the ceremony.  He felt bad about that, but there had been no other way. 

They had been waiting their turn with the current petty bureaucrat for several hours.  Each carrying a bedroll and a knapsack containing everything they had in the world.  Not much really.  A couple of old uniforms each and a few tattered letters.  In Zoe's a few books she'd carried throughout the war, in his a traveling chess set.  Even after all these months he still felt naked without a sidearm.  The first thing he was going to get, if they ever got that stake on Persephone, was a really good sidearm.  Right after the glorious drunk he intended to have and the warm and willing woman he intended to bed.  

A woman who was not Zoe.  Gorramit!  It was hard to sleep in the same room next to Zoe these days.  What in ruttin hell had possessed him that night?  He had never had any trouble not thinking of her like that before but now, seemed like he just couldn't get those images out of his mind!  '_Made!__ I'm a no-good lecherous hump!' _

No, the best thing for it would be to find a whore.  He wanted no ties or entanglements.   No.  Now it was just him and Zoe, he wasn't about to take on any more baggage. He'd had enough and more to last a lifetime in the Valley and since.  Best to find what comfort he could in a commercial transaction.  No obligation except payment for services rendered and no regrets at the end of the day. 

Just as his mind began to drift onto a well worn track, the petty bureaucrat in question finally looked up and lazily motioned them over. He nudged her out of the doze she had fallen into, "Zoe, we're on.  Time to put on our game face "  They approached as a women in the lavender gray of a Federal Auxiliary motioned them into seats in front of her and held out a hand without looking up for their papers.  Mal laid their enlistment papers; artfully aged wedding certificate; and transit orders from the camp in her outstretched hand. 

"I see your requested destination is Persephone.  _Now_ that's an odd request for a Captain in the Independent Regulars.  Captain Reynolds, is it?  Ah yes, and Mrs. Reynolds as well."  She looked at him with one well arched brow, a middle aged woman trying to take fifteen years off her age with make up and having very little success.  It made her look hard.  She ignored Zoe as she blatantly appraised him, her interest becoming predatory.

Mal tried a smile, putting as much charm and sincerity as he could into it.  "Not a captain, just a sergeant, rank was brevet; they didn't even pay me for it.  Just plain ol' civilian now.  Just glad to be done with the whole damn thing."   

Time to amp up that country boy charm that always pulled the girls at the Founder's Day Fair.  He tried to look at her as if he had an itch and she was just the one to scratch it.  

"Nothing odd either.  Me and the missus need work.  Persephone's big enough to have work and needs the cheap labor. We got experience ranching cattle and sheep. That's all we can expect at first.  Hopin' to get a stake together and buy a little land." 

He was rewarded by a look not so much appraising as downright hungry.  It made him feel like the dessert table at a church social.  He found it unsettling.  'Course that could also be the feeling that he had been stripped naked while she ogled him from stem to stern. He felt like asking her to leave him his boots.   

Zoe seemed to have developed a cough since sitting down.  It required her to cover her mouth and look away from him.  He glared at her, unmistakably sending her a look that said _'This is not funny, I'll kill you if you don't stop laughing!' before returning his attention to trying to charm the unappetizing pullet in front of him._

"W-e-l-l, there _is_ a pretty high demand for berths going to Persephone, we aren't allowed to flood them with Independent refugees.  It might be the quota for this quarter is already filled—unless you had some _special skills_?" she leered at him blatantly.  

Zoe's cough developed into a fierce spasm.  It sounded like the gal was gonna' cough up a lung right there on the woman's desk. She was enjoyin' this way too much and they'd be having words later, but right now he was getting a whole new perspective on this "no coin for sweetener thing".  He didn't think he was gonna get out of it just by opening a button or two, either.  '_Gorramit__!__ The woman had no shame.  She was bald faced propositionin' him right in front of his wife.  Well, not his wife, well she was his wife but not in the biblical sense, well he hadn't known her in the biblical sense.  Gorram, this wúnéug de rén Fed didn't know she wasn't really his wife!' _

"Well now, miss, as you can plainly see, my wife has developed a cold here.  I wonder if I could take just a moment to take her over and get her a drink of water."  He tried to make it sound suggestive and he must have succeeded because the _pofù was leering even more openly now._

"I'll tell you what, _Mister_ Reynolds, I'll assign you your bunk and you go get your wife settled.  I'm on shift here until 18:00 hours, but for _you I'll make an exception.  You come back at 18:00 hours and I'll take some of my own _personal_ time to discuss your destination.  That way we won't have to keep your wife in this drafty office.  What do you say?"_

He tried to look like a dog that just got off the leash as he gave her his biggest smile "Why, miss, that is just too kind.  I surely will do that, I surely will.  Eighteen-hundred it is.   Come on, _dear_."  The last said to Zoe in a vicious aside as he lifted her out of the chair by her elbow, still coughing in suppressed laughter with her hand over her mouth.

_"Liou coe shuai du biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh ur-tze.  What am I supposed to do now?"  In a beleaguered undertone as he dragged her from the building towards their assigned bunk._

"I didn't think it'd been so long you'd forgot what goes where, _Captain_."  She said as she went off into peals of now unsuppressed laughter.  "If you need a short refresher I think we have just enough time for me to draw you a picture."  Arriving in their bunk, she dropped her pack and fell on the bed in unrestrained glee.

"Gorram it! Zoe. _Bi zui!_  That _pofù_ is shameless.  Woman clearly has no respect for the bond of matrimony. 'Sides—she looks like she's old enough to be my mother!"

"I have a wave for you, Cap.  Sh- sh-she is!" And more with the laughing.

Through gritted teeth now, "I mean it Zoe, you are _not helping with this unseemly merriment.  What am I gonna do?"_

"L-l-lie back and think of England!"

In harassed puzzlement "England?  Now, why would I think of a planet halfway across the galaxy?  What gorram good is that gonna do me?"

At that point she totally lost it, laughing so hard she couldn't draw breath until she actually choked and began coughing in earnest.  Finally after several minutes in which he pounded her on the back with increasing force as he got angrier by the second, she wiped her eyes and settled herself down.

Adopting a solemnity that was at variance to the mischief in her eyes she explained.  "It's an old saying from _Earth-that-was. _It means, well it's supposed to mean you're not doing it for the _deed, so much as for the common good.  In this case, the common good of a billet on the next boat to Persephone."_

"I feel cheap."

"No sir, you're not cheap, you're free.  You _feel_ easy."

"Zoe!" wrathfully, "if you go off again I'm gonna smother you with that pillow!"

"Oh Mal, what you're gonna do is give that Fed the ride of her life and get us on that boat.  It's not like you never went with a homely whore, I remember after the campaign on New Terra . . ."

"That's different" he said mulishly.

"How?"

"Here I'm the whore."

"Well honey, the first rule of being a professional is 'Get the money up front'.  Make sure you got the transport orders in hand before you take anything else, err—in hand, so to speak."

"Zoe," he said, suddenly troubled "did you have to do this to get us this far?  Did I make a whore out of you?  Have they made me a pimp?"

"No sir, I didn't have to actually do the deed.  It never came to more than a grope and tickle.  But Mal, you should know if it came down to it I'd have done it without a second thought _and without feeling dirty about it after."  _

She looked him directly in the eye, all emotion wiped from her face, resolve in every inch of her bearing.  "What they force us to do to survive doesn't change who we are.  Only we can do that.  I made up my mind that to get us out of that hell-hole, I'd have laid every Fed in that camp.  And it was my decision not yours.  Knew if I'd asked you'd have said don't.  It's why I didn't ask."

"Oh, bao bei, what have we come to?" he murmured.  

"Only what we had to."  She said softly.  "What you gonna do?"

"Close my eyes and think of England, I reckon."

"Rule Brittania!" 

"Hunh?" 

Mal left their bunk without saying anything more and didn't come in until very late.  She was already in bed and pretended to be asleep as she felt the thin Alliance issue mattress sag beneath him.  He lay on his back, eyes hidden in the crook of his elbow for a long time before his regular breathing told her he had fallen asleep.    

After that Zoe hadn't seen a lot of Mal after 18:00 most of the three weeks they were in camp.  He seemed to get over his anger but he'd been kind of shamefaced around her the whole time.  She'd pretended not to notice. By the time he dragged in at night he was so tired he just fell into bed and passed out.  

It gave her more time on her own than she'd had in years.  The nightmares were back worse than ever.  More than once she'd awakened herself with her own screams to find tears on her face.  Sometimes they were so bad she couldn't struggle awake until Mal would shake her and hold her or stroke her hair and whisper nonsense to her as if he was gentling a horse. 

One night when he came in late to find her sitting up staring with wide drowning eyes at ghosts of the past, he put his arms around her, murmuring into her hair "Tet would understand, Zoe.  He wouldn't grudge us a chance to be together.  Hell, he never grudged it when he was here, certain sure he'd _want_ me to take care of you.  Don't punish yourself anymore.  Let it be." 

**_IN THE BEFORE  * * * * *_**

****

After the New Kasmir campaign, the Independents had regrouped.  The scuttlebutt was that there would be a major offensive on Hera but there were two or three Alliance occupied planets to be taken first or leave them in the rear to cut the supply lines.  She and Mal had gotten orders for additional combat drop training with the Air Calvary so the rumors were most likely true.  They expected a ninety day posting but after five and a half years of combat, ninety days in the rear for anything was like dying and going to heaven.  

They had been on the post about four days when she met Tetsuo Hamano.  He was from New Edo.  It was mostly a water world, lots of big islands, settled initially by Nipponese but now like everywhere the bloodlines were getting mixed.  Tet was sonsei, third generation.  Came from a well established family, they had a small fishing fleet, several boats run by a family collective, respected in the community.  He'd joined up about the same time they had for most of the same reasons.  

Mal met him over a beer at the slop chute and discovered he'd been on Kasmir too.  By the time Zoe showed up they were three sheets to the wind and bosom friends.  That was back in the day when Mal made friends easily.  Tet's eyes had lit up with obvious admiration when he saw her cross the room to join them.  They'd shown some disappointment when Mal threw his arm around her waist and pulled her into his side in the crowded bar then left it there as they talked.  She had liked what she saw as well.  Not quite as tall as Mal but a bit taller than she was.  Laughing brown eyes and traditional delicate Japanese features strengthened by a Swedish grandmother somewhere in the mix.

"Zoe, this is Tetsuo Hamano.  He was on Kasmir too.  Not so very far from where we were.  He was with the 34th.  He just got here and they told him to find a billet so we'll fix him up with us.  He's good people."

"Call me Tet."  He'd said with a ready smile. 

"That's fine then, Tet.   We got plenty of room in our barracks.  They haven't really started training yet.  Everyone's still trickling in from the different commands.  I just went down to HQ, seems we can take 72 hours of liberty and report back for start of training."  

"Well that's shiny, just shiny!  What do you say Tet?  You got any plans or your want to join us?   We could do some serious damage in 72 hours!"  Mal had said.

He'd hesitated "I don't want to intrude." He had an easy charm, not diffident but not pushy either.

"No 'trusion, love to have you.  Wouldn't we Zoe?—Love to have him?"

"Sure, Tet, unless you have other plans?"  But it seemed he didn't and from that point on it had been the three of them.  

Because of their rank, combat experience and age, at twenty-five they were old men compared to the whey faced boys they had coming into camp.  Mal and Tet each got a posting as sergeant and a platoon in the same company.  Zoe was Mal's corporal.  The training they went through was intensive but nothing compared to combat and their duties left them plenty of time to drink, play cards and grouse about how the war was being waged by their superiors.  Grousing was the perennial privilege of the enlisted man from the time of Caesar, according to Tet.  He read a lot of history and had wanted to teach at a Polytechnic before the war.  

As usual, most of the camp assumed she and Mal were lovers.  Also as usual they didn't say anything, one way or the other.  It didn't stop Mal from making up to the warm blond handful of a corporal in the quartermaster's office.  That seemed to give Tet pause for thought.

"When are you gonna give that boy a fall?"  Mal had laughed at her on his way out after chow one evening to meet his corporal

"What's it to you, Mal?"

"Nothin' 'sides wantin' to see you happy, woman.  Easy to see you got a letch for him.  Equally easy to see he's had one for you since he laid eyes on you."

Cocking one eyebrow at him, she inquired sarcastically, "Why this sudden, and unseemly interest in my love life?  Usually you do your best to run anybody off if I so much as pass the time of day with 'em?"  

"Woman, that eyebrow is a deadly weapon.  It can stop a man in his tracks faster than a howitzer.  How did you learn to do that?  Mama taught you that didn't she? It's a female thing.  They take all the girls to one side and they teach them the deadly eyebrow lifting technique when we menfolk aren't looking." He grinned at her.

"They don't have to teach us Mal, it comes natural from having to listen to the _gou__ pi our menfolk talk." _

"Seriously, do it seem like that to you Zoe?  Have I been a dog in the manger?  I just want you to have someone worthy of you."

She'd laughed at him.  "Mal I been ignorin' your ways over me and the fella's as long as I been old enough to know there was a difference.  If Tet wants something he'll have to do something about it.  If I want something I'll ignore you just like I always do."

"Just want you to be happy, bao bei."  With an arm around her waist and a kiss dropped into her hair he'd ambled out for a night of happy lechery. 

When Tet had come in they'd gone over to the slop chute for a beer and spent the evening talking about home.  He described the blue of the ocean and the sugar sand beaches and what if felt like to be on the sea at night in a swell with nothing between you and the elements but a fiberglass cockleshell.  She had told him about Shadow, about the grass plains and the mountains.  About what it felt like to be on a long cattle drive and how at night the stars seemed so close she could reach out and pull them right out of the sky.  She told him, too, about what living on a deep space transport was like, and how it felt to never stay in any place long but always to have your home safe about you.  It was one of her few good memories of the war, that evening with Tet.

They were on night maneuvers about half-way through their training when Tet did something about it.  They had just covered 25km in a forced night march and had halted to entrench their positions against a simulated enemy assault.  Mal had gone to see about his wayward babe Jonesy.  Every unit of every army on every planet ever settled has a private named Jones.  He's always called Jonesy and nine time out of ten he's a hopeless screw-up, until he makes corporal and then he saves everyone's life by some act of incredibly stupid heroics.  Mal's particular Jonesy was still in the embryonic screw-up stage, so he took a fair amount of seeing to.

She and Tet had settled down to eat their rations.  They were just sitting in companionable silence, when Tet said "Zoe, I'm about to do something I swore I wouldn't, but time's short and I gotta know."

She looked at him steadily as he gently bent down to kiss her softly on the lips.  Her mouth opened beneath his as he became more insistent.  He reached out with one hand to pull her into him as he rolled towards her.  She could feel the heat of him along the length of her body, could feel his arousal and her rising passion answering him when he broke the kiss.

"Oh god," he said raggedly, "I wanted to do that for so long.  What do we do now?"

"I thought we were doing it." she said simply.

"Zoe, it seems to me that maybe . . .  I thought when we first met that you and Mal were . . . but now it seems maybe not.  I would never say anything to you if I knew you were . . .  Oh crap.  I have feelings for you Zoe, more than just--I'm not some _wúnéug_ de rén_ just looking to get off." he stuttered to a halt._

"Shhh." she put her fingers over his lips, then bent to kiss him.  "Mal and me we been together our whole lives, but never—it's never been like that with us.  We're closer than sibs but we don't strike sparks.  Not like this."  And she had proceeded to strike a fair number of sparks for a woman fully dressed in field combat gear and on duty.  

Mal had come back just then muttering curses in Chinese under his breath and managed to trip over them in the dark.  "Whoa now, what's this?" he'd muttered as he fell right in between them.  Tet had sprung back still feeling guilty but all Mal had said with a soft laugh in the dark was "My mistake, I thought this was my doss.  You two have fun but don't let the kids see you, it might scar the little darlin's for life."  And he'd rolled over and done a boot camp perfect combat crawl far enough away to give them the illusion of privacy.

After that they spent every free minute together, sometimes with Mal, sometimes not.  Mal didn't seem bothered by Tet the way he had been the other times.  Zoe just knew she loved Tet so much she thought her heart would explode when she looked at him.  It gave her a deep sense of contentment that the two men who loved her seemed able to share her love. They talked of getting married after the war was over, neither really believing it ever would be.  Their desperation gave a poignant immediacy to their love, it was as if a layer of skin had been removed and every experience was more real.

Then their training was done and they got orders, they campaigned together for over a year.  They made three combat jumps, clearing Alliance held planets for the Hera offensive and nobody got a scratch. Then came Hera and Serenity Valley. Tet had taken a round to the stomach in the first week and had known he was dying for hours before the final release.   Zoe had stayed at his side the whole time, holding his hand and whispering her love into his ear.  She talked about the oceans he was going to show her and the mountains she would show him; about the life they would live and the children she would bear him.  In those short hours before he died she tried to share a lifetime of memories they would never have.  

Mal had come when he could be spared from the line.  Tet had still been conscious then and he had said "Take care of our Zoe for me, Sarge.  You don't let nothin' happen to her."   His last words to Zoe had been, "I am so lucky I got to love you."  At the end he screamed in agony because the medic didn't have enough painkillers.  Unconsciousness was a blessing when it finally came.  He died just before dawn and it always seemed wrong to Zoe that the sunrise over the mountains that day was one of the most beautiful things she'd ever seen.  She'd wept for Tet that day and after that she never wept again in her waking hours.  Her dreams were a different story.  The worst of the nightmares were when she relived those hours of his dying.

To be continued.  Next Chapter-Something Frivolous

Chinese Glossary

_Made! __Juh__ hen sh guh kwai luh duh jean jan_.[Fuck! This really is a happy holiday.]   

_Tian__ xia shuo you de ren dou gaisi! [Everyone in the universe should die!]_

_jing__ tzahng mei yong duh liou mahng [useless bastard]_

_wúnéug__ de rén [piece of trash]_

_pofù_ [bitch]

_Liou__ coe shuai du biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh ur-tze [Salivating son of a bitch and a monkey]_

_Bi zui!_ [Shut up!]  

_Made! _[Fuck!] 

_Ni meí shì bà?[Are you okay?]_

_gôu__ pì_ [bullshit]


	4. Something Frivolous

THE PRICE PAID--CHAPTER FOUR –SOMETHING FRIVOLOUS  
  
  
  
This is the next chapter in the story of what happened between the laying down of arms and the picking up of passengers. Please feel free to let me know your criticisms. I really am interested even if you didn't like the story, hell, especially if you didn't like the story. Once again I would like to thank Archer for his tireless beta. At his suggestion I am putting the glossary at the top to make translation easier.   
  
All of the customary disclaimers apply, please do not archive without permission.  
  
Chinese Glossary  
  
pofù [bitch]  
  
bao bei[darling]  
  
PRESENT DAY  
  
They didn't make it on the next boat but the one after that they got the berth. He must have done his best for the woman, because the berth was a good one. The ship was a converted troop carrier, now used to carry terraforming crews to the outer rings but had to refit at the Eavesdown Docks on Persephone. They got a miniscule cabin to themselves for the two week trip, giving them time to map out a plan. She had known he was hatching something since before they made it to Relocation and she figured he'd tell her when he was ready. He was ready the second day out.  
  
He came in to their berth to find her reading on the bunk. She could tell he was nervous as he wandered around the tiny cabin picking up and putting down the oddiments that collect when people live in too small a space, her hair combs, the chess pieces left on the board, his razor. Seeming to make up his mind to take the plunge, he turned to face her and took a deep breath.   
  
"Zoe, I've been studyin' on what to do when we get to Persephone."  
  
She put down the book and gave him her full attention. "You ain't serious about buying a spread." She made it a statement not a question.  
  
"I made up my mind, ain't never gonna call a place home that someone can take away from us again." He looked at her with an unreadable expression in his eyes, only the restless movement of his hands betraying his anxiety. "If you want to settle, we'll get the money and find you a place you can call home, but I can't." He looked up from the chess piece he was turning over in his hands, to see how she was taking it.  
  
"Home is where you are Mal. If you aren't there, it ain't home. I think we've finished talking about that." She said with quiet finality. "You have something in mind?"  
  
"You know those boys I brought to witness the—uhm, you know—doin's with the chaplain? Well they're pilots. They were with the Angels and got shot down over the Valley. Anyway, I been talkin' to 'em about--uhm, about things." Nervous, but determined, he took the next hill at a dead run. "I think we should buy a ship."  
  
She was surprised, "A ship?"  
  
He went on urgently, as if needing her to see his vision, a glimpse of the old impetuous Mal peeping through the misery of the past year. "A deep space transport. If we get a ship there's plenty of work to be had on the fringes. We can take jobs as they come, live like real people, never be under the heel of nobody ever again. No matter how heavy the Alliance hand is we just avoid 'em, just keep movin' . . ."  
  
She heard her own voice echo across the years "Never stay in any place long but always have our home safe about us."  
  
His eyes lightened as her words told him that she saw what he did, "I know we could do it. It might take us awhile to make it happen but we got the start of it with the money Mama sent. Look for deal on a second hand ship. Put together a small crew, them we could trust—them as wants a free life. We could do it, Zoe."  
  
It came to her that this would be the life she was born to. The rhythms were in her blood. It was with a sense of rightness that she realized her answer was already given, that in her heart she'd already said yes. So the only thing left to do was say it out loud. "We will do it, Mal."  
  
After that he took her to the mess and introduced her to Mike Tanaka and Rafael Arreola. They had both been at the wedding but had excused themselves immediately after, assuming the newlyweds would want to be alone. This was the first time she'd had a chance to size them up. She liked what she saw.   
  
Tanaka was in his late forties, capable and matter of fact, of mixed Japanese-Hindi ancestry. He had the puckish sense of humor which seemed to be common among pilots, at least those who'd enlisted with the Independent forces. They were an iconoclastic bunch. Commanding them in the war had been compared to herding cats. He'd been a deep space trader in the before. He had joined when Alliance blockades made it impossible for a free man to make a living. Rafe Arreola was in his mid-thirties. A small man, he reminded her of a wren, small, round and brown with bright active eyes. He'd served with Tanaka since the earliest days of the war as a gunner but he'd been trained as an engineer.  
  
Tanaka had mothballed his ship on Verbena. Their plan was to get passage from Persephone, pick up the ship, get her space worthy and run a cargo of black market war surplus from Boros to New Hall. They needed an extra man, one who was handy with a gun and could be relied upon not to lose his head nor talk after. Tanaka was willing to take on Mal, give him a crash course in the basics of shipcraft, show him the ropes and give him ten per cent of the profits.  
  
She heard them out in silence raising one eyebrow at the obvious omission of her presence. "And what am I expected to do while this is goin' on? I'm not really the type to sit and embroider doilies."  
  
"You got that thing that you have to do on Shadow." Mal had said with heavy meaning.   
  
"On, Shadow?"  
  
He continued as if she had not interrupted him, "This run with Mike and Rafe should take about eight, maybe ten weeks. Should give you all the time you need to do what you gotta. We'll meet up back on Persephone and look for a ship of our own then. Mike says he knows a shipwright that's middling honest, he'll give us an intro, see we're only passably cheated." All said with a dazzling smile as if to dare her to say anything in front of the others.  
  
She knew Mal was up to something, so she gave the pilots a slow smile and said nothing while they talked of ways and means of taking ship from Persephone to Verbena, where to get the cargo and how to avoid the customs agents on the Alliance Cruisers currently deployed at the rim to prevent just such freebooting. After what seemed endless cups of a beverage that could be called coffee only with the grossest disregard for truth, the thing was in a fair way to being settled. Except for the part where she still wasn't quite clear on why she was going to Shadow. So she got to her feet and collected Mal with a look that said 'Now' as clearly as if she had shouted it.   
  
Mal smiled easily, as if it was his idea to leave. He'd always had a knack for getting ahead of a mob and calling it a parade. "We'll be talkin' on this a whole lot more before we hit dirt, I'm sure, boys. Glad we can do bizness on this. I'm sure we're gonna work fine together. I hope you'll excuse us, but me and the missus are still by way of being newlyweds." The last said with a lecherous smile, and they were out of the mess on their way to their cabin.  
  
"You did that to annoy me didn't you, sir?"  
  
"We-e-l-l-l", he said with a grin, "no, that was a bonus. I said it because I could tell if you sat there without saying anything for one more minute, blood would start to leak out your ears. And as amusing as that sight might be I felt it might be counter-productive to what I am trying to accomplish here."  
  
"And what would that be, sir?" She said as they entered the cabin and shut the hatch behind them.  
  
"Why, to convince you that you need to go to Shadow, not on a ten week jaunt as an apprentice smuggler."  
  
"And why exactly would I be going the very place we're proscribed from bein' and us not one month out of camp?"  
  
"Look Zoe, one of us needs to go. We need to see Jimmy about the spread and get what funds are due us. We'll need them to get up and flyin'."   
  
She looked at him skeptically.  
  
He met her eye and told her the real meat of the situation. "We need to get a line on Avery. You're better at keepin' a low profile than I am. Now may not be the time, we may not be able to move for a long time. But we gotta have the intel on this guy now so we can track him. I ain't lettin' go of this, but better right now if I'm not on the same planet with him, I'm thinkin'."  
  
She reluctantly nodded her agreement with his thought there. He was in no fit state to exercise the self-control not to get himself killed if he met the man.  
  
"You can go back as my wife, go in civies, no mention of enlistment. No one who knows is ever gonna give the time of day to the Feds. Look around quietly. See what the landscape is and see if you can set Jimmy or someone else we know to keep a quiet eye on Avery and let us know from time to time which way the wind is blowing with him."  
  
She thought on it for a bit. It was rough, they would have to work out the details, but they'd have plenty of time before planet fall. It made sense. Mal took her silence for assent and went on.  
  
"While you're there you can file for annulment on grounds of desertion—tell them you haven't seen me in months, don't know where I am. You can publish the notice on Shadow. It'll all be nice and legal and you'll be single again as soon as the cat can lick her ear."  
  
She gave him a dazzling smile of comprehension. "Nobody who is divorcing a no good deserting philanderer of a husband would be acting for him in any underhanded way, would she sir?"  
  
"Philandering? Who said philandering? Deserting I said, not philandering."  
  
"But you were philandering sir, went with that shameless pofù right in front of my face, for three weeks. You were an insatiable philanderer!"  
  
"I knew I was gonna pay for that, some day."  
  
"Well, sir, that day has dawned."  
  
After what seemed like endless discussions over not-coffee they had a plan. It appeared they would need about fifty thousand credits. According to Mike Tanaka, sixty would be better. A second hand ship, nothin' flash but sturdy and serviceable would run them thirty, maybe thirty five thou. Figure another ten thousand to refit, upgrade, and provision her. That left a meager five grand to bankroll them until they could start to turn a profit and out of that they'd have to hire at least a pilot-navigator and a mechanic to keep her in the black. They would provide the muscle and brains. It was left vague as to who was to be the muscle and who the brains.  
  
Zoe would go to Shadow. She'd go in as his wronged wife and file for annulment by notification. She'd get the lay of the land on Avery and see to whatever business needed doing about the ranch. She'd decide after talking to Jimmy whether a buy-out of their shares would be feasible or they would have to take the income for a few years until times got better. The drovers were family and you didn't strap family just because you were hurting your ownself.   
  
As soon as the ramp was down on Persephone they headed out for the bank. Each wearing their only set of civvies, issued at the relocation center and screaming 'displaced person' as clearly as if they had just worn regulation Browns. They arranged with Tanaka and Rafe to take their bags and meet at a modest doss The Pilot's Wife on the edge of the Eavesdown Docks. The area was notorious but Tanaka knew the proprietor and said they wouldn't be robbed or raided.   
  
They walked through the raucous colorful crowd of the port slightly dazed with the noise and variety of the street life. After the sameness of the POW camp and military posts, the hubbub was disorienting. Weaving their way through the vendors crying their wares and ships pursers trying to hustle passengers, they followed Mike's directions towards the edge of the port and into the quieter lushness of the commercial district.   
  
The Alliance Bank of Credit and Commerce was a temple to the wealth of the Core Worlds and they felt as conspicuous in it as a drunk at a Temperance garden party. But nothing could have been smoother or more polite than the exquisitely dressed, bland faced youngster who shepherded them to a private office for pass-worded accounts after they made their needs known. They were given forms on which they impressed their thumbprints and each listed their 'middle name' and they were given their money. It came to just over thirty five thousand credits.   
  
A good start, but not a ship. Well they hadn't really expected it to be. It seemed they could leave the money on account there, drawing interest, and get a draft by wave from any affiliated branch, so that's what they did. Mal took fifteen hundred out in cash. They were going to need to be outfitted and good weaponry didn't come cheap, but bad weaponry was an expense they couldn't afford. Zoe would need money for transport and what with one thing or another she might need a sweetener here or there, the war had pushed even the price of bribes up.   
  
They went first to a gunsmith, recommended this time by Mike. It was a small shop, family run and it was clear that they loved the weapons they sold. No laser or sonic weapons at all, just projectile. Fit for use in the black or dirtside. Nothing fancy, just honest value at a fair price. No fancy gentlemen would look for dueling pistols here, more fools they. Mal selected a revolver- a revolver wouldn't jam, and if it misfired, just pull the trigger again and let the next round do the job. He liked the feel of it, solid on his hip but leaping lightly to the hand from the holster, not a hair trigger but a very smooth pull. He bought a rifle and shotgun as well, and the smith threw in a holster. Not new, but well oiled and clearly cared for by someone who knew how; and why it as important.  
  
Zoe got a sidearm as well, a lighter piece more suitable to her upper body strength and the smith threw in the holster on hers too. At Mal's suggestion she got a belly gun to carry on Shadow where concealment might not come amiss. Just as they were leaving another weapon caught her eye, a shotgun, sawed off and fitted with a wooden dueling grip. It was a vicious, lovely thing. No real range to it but deadly in close quarters and the buckshot would have no possibility of piercing even the thinnest hull plating. She remembered her father keeping something very like it on the bridge of the Atticus Finch in case of Reavers or brigands. So she made Mal buy her that as well. It made a sizeable dent in their funds but they both felt truly free for the fist time since they laid down arms.  
  
Neither felt comfortable heading for the City Center with its luxury malls, probably luxury prices too. So they looked for a mercantile near the docks. They found one in a slightly better-class neighborhood and did their first civilian shopping in over nine years. Mal made do with three sets of clothes, much like the ones he grew up wearing on Shadow. One to wear, one for the wash and one for the drawer, Mama used to say. He bought a good pair of boots and two pairs of suspenders. If he was going back to a belted sidearm he wouldn't want a second belt around his middle.   
  
He insisted that Zoe do a little more damage to their bankroll. He convinced her that her role on Shadow would require more than the three serviceable sets of pants and shirts, which is all she set out to buy. It was true, but the real reason was because he wanted the joy of watching her shop for pretty things. It was such a little thing for most people, to watch a pretty woman buy a dress. But for him, and for her, it was the first time. She'd only been eighteen when she'd followed him to war. She'd worn pants most the time, with party dresses homemade or ordered by catalogue. Besides the blouse she'd worn to her vows, bought on that long ago liberty, he'd never seen her buy anything pretty just for herself. He wanted her to have that. He wanted to have the memory of it for himself.   
  
She started out getting a divided leather skirt and vest which set her figure off so well it would have started a riot in most of the local bars. But it was still practical to wear and travel in. She got a couple of skirts in dark sensible colors with shirts to match. As she shopped he watched her eyes keep straying to something deep green and glittery but when he urged her to try it on she demurred.  
  
"Got no use for such fooferal." She said regretfully  
  
"I think the very point of fooferal is not to be useful." He drawled. "Come on Zoe, give a fella a rush, let's see you in the thing."  
  
She let herself be persuaded and he lounged in the store while she went behind the curtain to try it on. He heard her muttering to herself in gentle complaint about the wastefulness of the thing. Then he didn't hear anything for awhile.  
  
"Zoe, you alright in there?" He caught the clerk's eye and winked as he said "Do I need to mount a rescue op?"  
  
Just then the curtain rattled on its rod and a total stranger stepped out to confront him. Zoe King looked like a courtesan from the palace of some ancient prince of Earth-that-was. The dress was cut long but any pretense of modesty was destroyed by a long slit up the front to mid-thigh. The hem skimmed her ankles, which was good, because it didn't have an over-abundance of material in the top. The front was cut low, plunging to her waist and the back was non-existent. It was a marvel of engineering that the thing stayed on and it was clear that under the gown was nothing but beautiful woman. Mal's eyes 'bout popped out of his head.  
  
"Who are you and what have you done with the gal I came in with?" he quipped.  
  
"Oh Mal, it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." She said wistfully.  
  
"Nah, you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, bao bei." He said it so reverently it made her laugh. "Woman, you got to buy that thing."   
  
"What will I ever do with somethin' like this? It's a waste of money" She seemed shy of him as if they were strangers.  
  
"Zoe, believe me when I say to you that nothin' that makes you look that good is a waste of money."  
  
She'd laughed again, a little breathlessly, as if tears might not be too far away.   
  
"Hey, young fella, you got something to put on her feet to go with this number?" He'd looked at her and waggled his eyebrows. "Somehow I don't think them boots are gonna to make the cut." He said laughingly.   
  
She still looked askance at him, so he said to her with quiet sincerity "Zoe in all the years I known you I ain't never given you anything frivolous. I want to have the memory this one time of taking you shopping and buying you something for no other reason than it makes you happy. Let me have this one memory."  
  
He saw her suddenly relax and they weren't strangers anymore but back to being Mal and Zoe, like always.  
  
"Well, I guess I can always be buried in it."  
  
To be continued. Next--Chapter Five--All in Cages 


	5. All in Cages

CHAPTER 5-ALL IN CAGES  
  
All rights and customary disclaimers in favor of Mutant Enemy. Once again, please critique as liberally as your conscience allows, it won't hurt my feelings and might make the story better. Please do not archive without permission .  
  
This is the next chapter in the story of how they got from Serenity Valley into the black. Finally, a bar fight and lots of baths, even a meal with some real food in it! Thanks again to Archer for his valuable editorial contribution  
  
Chinese Glossary  
  
Ni bu gan kai ni de hwang chiang [You must not talk so nastily]  
  
Wo de tien ah [Dear God in Heaven]  
  
Shenme [What?]  
  
Dong ma [understand]  
  
Bi zui [shut up]  
  
Nah mei guan shi [That has nothing to do with it]  
  
pofu [bitch]  
  
hundan [asshole/bastard]  
  
Qu ni de [up yours]  
  
PRESENT DAY  
  
It was getting on for supper when, shopping done, they headed to the doss. The streets and alleys, never savory, were taking on a distinctly threatening aspect. Zoe was glad they had already strapped on the weapons. They found The Pilot's Wife, it was a small hostel that catered to the quieter space crews, a small bar and café with clean quiet rooms above. If you wanted to raise hell you were expected to do it elsewhere. They checked in at the desk to find Mike and Rafe had dropped their bags and gone out again. Zoe saw Mal lean across the counter to drop a quiet word in the clerk's ear but couldn't hear what he said before accepting the key.  
  
They were on the third story. There was no lift so they walked up. As they entered Zoe realized what Mal must have been asking the desk clerk. Her lips curled into a smile as she saw that the room had separate beds and its own bath, with an honest to God tub, deep enough to actually soak in!  
  
There was mischief in her smile as she said "Separate beds and a tub, If I didn't know better I'd say you were trying to tell me something. Good thing I'm not the sensitive type."  
  
He grinned at her with the echo of the old Mal in it as he said "Run it deep! We got time before we eat."  
  
She didn't need to be invited twice. She was in the bathroom with the door closed, out of the Alliance-issue togs and in the bath with the water and steam billowing out of the faucet in land-speed record time. As she sank into the bone-softening warmth she called out to him above the running water, "Mal, are we actually going to have a meal with real food in it? "  
  
"That's the notion." He called out as he shrugged out of his coat and threw it across the end of the bed. "I asked Tanaka where would be the best and he said there was a road house that serves the best beef on Persephone right at the edge of the docks. Thought I'd buy you a steak. Haven't had beef since before the Valley." He kicked off his boots and dropped the suspenders from his shoulders He reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a box wrapped in silver tissue and put it on the pillow of the other bed before he pulled the shirt from his waistband then stretched out on his own. He closed his eyes to the sound of splashing and Zoe gently humming to herself, some Irish lament from the sound of it, but somehow it didn't sound sad at all. He drifted off to sleep.  
  
When she came out of the bath a good while later she found him sprawled on the bed, asleep with one foot hanging off the bed snoring softly. He looked younger than he had in a long time. It was hard to believe he wouldn't be 30 until his next birthday. Nor she twenty-eight, most days she felt like a hundred, but not today. Today had been a good day.  
  
Humming to herself, an old air often sung at wakes on Shadow, she began to comb out the wet tangle of her hair when she saw the wrapped box. She couldn't recall when she had last had a present. Maybe from, Tet, when they were in drop training. He'd bought her perfume from the PX one time and had it wrapped up to surprise her. She'd worn the scent through action on three worlds. It smelled of gardenias. Tet had said it reminded him of home. She could never bear to wear it after.  
  
As she reached out to take the box she felt a catch in her throat. It was like a promise that there would be a future for them. A time when getting a present would be. . . just getting a present. Not a first--everything now was a first. She pulled the tissue apart carefully and opened the blue velvet box inside. It was a heavy chased silver belt buckle in a Celtic knot. It caught a shaft of light from the bathroom that played over the intricate curves, beautiful and lovingly hand-made.  
  
"There's a thing-a trick to it." She looked up to find Mal awake. He sat up and put out his hand. She handed it to him and watched as he pushed on one of the silver cords making up the intricate knot as he pulled from the opposite side and then he was holding a sharply honed 4 inch triangular blade in one hand, small but very deadly. He looked up at her as he said, "I saw it while you were in the dressin' room. It reminded me of you, efficient, deadly, and beautiful."  
  
"You sure know how to sweet talk a girl, Mal." She said it with a laugh but was touched nonetheless. "I guess you weren't goin' soft with the dress and all. Don't know which I like better."  
  
"I know which I do." He said it with a straight face but an unholy gleam in his eye.  
  
"If you want a bath better get it now." She said dryly. "You won't want to take the time after we eat." Responding with some innuendo of her own.  
  
"Won't want to take the time from what?" He said with feigned innocence.  
  
"Mal, you been plannin' to hit the fleshpots since before we made 'Relocation'. I reckon you been plannin' even harder since you need to wash away the taste of that pofu."  
  
"Ni bu gan kai ni de hwang chiang. Woman, you wound me with your base insinuations. If I happened to be in a place of commerce having a quiet drink, where comely and willing women were to befriend me as part of a commercial transaction I probably wouldn't be adverse, but I have no plans."  
  
"Only because you don't know how to ask Tanaka and Rafe where a clean brothel is while they think we're newlyweds."  
  
"Zoe!" He attempted to sound a note of righteous indignation but to his chagrin it was clear she wasn't have buying it  
  
"Wo de tien ah, just tell them what's what. They'll understand and you won't have to carry on this play acting. You're gonna be spendin' a couple of months with them, its going to get wearisome and you are not a man of great patience. Just tell them. Dong ma?"  
  
He had never been much of a one for whores. He wasn't a prude about it. He'd even gone with them a few times when pushed to it by a lack of available partners, after a big battle when the drive to feel yourself alive was almost overpowering and no one else was available. But most times if there wasn't a willing gal to spark he'd just do without.  
  
She'd asked him once why he didn't go like all the others did. He said all the whores he ever met were forced into the life in one way or another and he got no satisfaction in the commerce. It made the sex tawdry and he felt bad after. Better to do it himself and have nothing to confess  
  
That was back when he'd still believed. He'd always been a man of strong appetites but an even stronger conscience. He still had his conscience- that was why he wouldn't accept her comfort-but maybe he didn't have the faith that underlay it anymore. She wondered if it made the prospect of purchased . . .accommodation easier.  
  
She knew for a fact that except for that pofu in 'Relocation' it had been close to two years since he was with a woman. There hadn't been anyone in the camp and not for awhile before they went into the Valley. She hoped he'd get some satisfaction but she suspected he wouldn't. He was a great one for mortifying himself when there was no need.  
  
He went into the bath without saying any thing else and she got dressed. She wore Mal's gift and placed the hideout gun in its small shoulder holster under her vest. Then she sat on the bed waiting for him. She thought about the fact that he was more willing to accept comfort from a stranger for cash than from her and wondered what that said about him, maybe even about her.  
  
Tanaka was right, the Butcher's Block did serve a fine steak. It had a very nice line in liquor, too and Mal was working his way through a bottle of sipping whiskey. She'd looked over the clientele when they first came in, realized there was a sizeable portion of diners in Alliance gray and had contented herself with one drink. Seated at right angles to each other in a corner table, they could watch the whole room inconspicuously with their backs to the wall, while they waited for Tanaka and Rafe to meet them and fill them in. They were supposed to be arranging passage for all of them. They knew most of the ships and pilots in port and would strike the best deals with the most 'reliable' crews. From the tone of voice when Tanaka said it, she had gathered he meant most disreputable. So they waited and ate until Zoe thought Mal might need a wheel barrow to get her out the door.  
  
The barmaid who served them was making up to Mal in the most shameless way and he was flirting right back at her. Zoe could almost think they were back on Shadow or at least the early days of the war when Mal had been that carefree, with no one's life in his keeping but his own.  
  
"You know, Mal," she said after the girl had moved off to serve a nearby table of raucous spacers, "easy to see that girl has a letch for you. If you asked she'd be more than happy to meet you after her shift. You ought to give her a fall."  
  
"Woman, why are trying so hard to get me laid? There's something indecent about it given that we swore to cleave only unto each other. This here,-- not in the best tradition of cleavin'." He said it with a smile but the carefree Mal was gone for the moment.  
  
"That your way of telling me to mind my own business?" She said with a challenge, never one to shirk the unpleasant.  
  
"Ahh Zoe, why you pushin' so hard? What harm if I go with a whore? Not like I never did it before, never seemed to bother you then."  
  
"That was before you told me you felt sordid after, that they were all in a cage of some sort. You're the one said it left you feeling like you'd forced a gal. We just come out of a prison ourselves, occurs to me you might not want to be in the cage business."  
  
"Well," he said flatly. "I've come to realize we're all in cages, every last one of us and nothing I did put them there. Better to have a cash transaction then you know where you are. No obligations beyond payment for services rendered. Nothin' offered and nothin' expected."  
  
The bitterness in his voice wrung her to the heart. "Is that why you wouldn't--?" Her voice trailed off.  
  
"Nah mei guan shi. With us there can't never be a question of obligation. I just ain't looking to take on any more responsibilities. Just you and me. That's all I plan to care 'bout. Dong ma? Now leave it go." There was a plea in his voice that said this wasn't the time to push, so she sighed and decided that, discretion being the greater part of valor, she would fold her tent on this argument. There would always be another day.  
  
Just then she caught sight of Tanaka at the door of the tavern. He met her eyes and beckoned with a nod of the head. "Time to go, Mal." She gestured towards the door. She got up and started across the room to the door while Mal stopped to pay their shot. The barmaid was having one last go at him as Zoe crossed the room. Tanaka with Rafe beside him had withdrawn discreetly from the bar to wait in the darkness outside.  
  
As she crossed the room she passed by a table full of uniformed Alliance troops. They had been rowdy when they arrived and had gotten louder as the evening progressed. There were six of them gathered around the table with a litter of spent bottles, uniforms disheveled and the detritus of a long drunken revel on the table in front of them.  
  
As she passed by, one of the drunken troopers reached out to grab her by the elbow and swung her into his lap, saying thickly in the accent common to Dyton colony, "Come 'ere then, darling and gi'e us a go!" He leered at her drunkenly then tried to use the other hand to fondle her. Mal looking up at just that moment, and seeing her, gave an oath and headed towards her at a run.  
  
As the Fed grabbed her, Zoe grabbed the hand he was trying to grope her with and bent his thumb back to his arm at an unnatural angle causing a surprisingly high pitched squeal of pain. Mal arrived at the table at the same time as the three Feds facing his way started to rise. Zoe reared back and put both her booted feet on the edge of the table and pushed off against it. Her push shoved the whole table into the three drunks on the other side. Two of them took it in the gut setting them back down in their chairs. The third, faster off the mark, took the full force of the table lower down and folded up like a sheet of wet newspaper. Zoe, the Fed holding her, and the chair went over backwards as she did a rear somersault out of his grasp, with his thumb still held in restraint.  
  
She came up with the hideout gun pointed at his head to see Mal grab a bottle from the tabletop with his left hand and throw it into the face of the man on her left while drawing his gun from his holster to point it at the head of the man to her right. The whole thing was over nearly as quickly as it started.  
  
"Now, then, what's all this?" Mal said with his lazy drawl and a look of unholy glee in his eye. "Is there some reason you fella's felt at liberty to manhandle my wife?"  
  
"Qu ni de! You'll pay for this." The one with Mal's gun in his face spat out.  
  
Mall ground the barrel of his revolver firmly into the man's temple and said in a deceptively soft voice "You know all these fine folks are here to have a nice meal and it occurs to me that it's goin' to spoil some appetites to see your brains spattered about. 'Course personally I've finished my dinner and it'd be by way of dessert for me."  
  
"I'll see you in hell ho-tze de pigu Browncoat! They'll top you for assaulting Federal troops." This from the one he had thrown the bottle at. It had broken on impact and cut him in a jagged line from forehead to cheek. He was going to carry a fearsome scar for the rest of his life.  
  
"Do ya think so?" He asked, almost conversationally. "The way I see it, my wife and I were havin' a quiet dinner, bothering no one and as she crossed the room to leave she was assaulted by a drunken Fed with the clear intent to commit rapine, egged on by five of his drunken cohorts. See, I'm thinkin' with all these witnesses the Provost Marshall will see it that way too. He won't have any choice 'cause none of these good folk here doubt that the next time it could be their wife or daughter." Over his shoulder he called out to the barmaid, "What do you think darlin'? Shall we call in the Provos'?"  
  
The look on the faces of all the Feds able to understand the implications made it clear they knew the charges would be serious and could be fatal. Attempted rape of a civilian was a capital charge in the Army of the Union of Allied Planets, though seldom prosecuted as such. The girl already had her hand on the cortex screen in reply when Mal went on.  
  
"Or we could put it down to an excess of high spirits and spirituous liquor which overcame otherwise clean and virtuous boys like yourselves and we could call it quits right now."  
  
It was clear they had lost the stomach for a fight. But also clear that the shame of being bested by two civilians, one of them a woman, in front of an acre of witnesses was a problem.  
  
"I'll tell you how it is boys, me and the missus, we're just passing through. We'll be leaving port in the next day or two. Now we don't want any further trouble but if we were to get it we'd just have to go to the Provost. And we'd still have that acre of witnesses, wouldn't we darlin'?" The last over his shoulder to the barmaid who still had her hand on the cortex terminal.  
  
"Sure would, and half of them are regular enough to run a tab, so I'd know exactly how to get aholt' of them." She said pugnaciously.  
  
"Ya see how it is, then. What do you say? You want to put this to bed right now or keep ridin' and see where it takes us?"  
  
Taking silence for agreement and ignoring the moans of the incapacitated, he jerked his head at the door, motioning for Zoe to precede him. She rose gracefully and stepping on the chest of the prone hwu dahn who had started the fracas, moved towards the door with Mal covering her retreat. He kept the gun leveled at the Feds as he backed towards the door saying as he left the lighted dining room for the darkness of the street.  
  
"Don't forget to leave a nice tip. Y'all have been a world of trouble to that poor girl. She's got to clean up after your mess."  
  
He tossed her a twenty credit Alliance coin and a smile that would have melted polar ice as they faded into the covering darkness outside. Mal gave an unrestrained crow of laughter. "Well, that was bracing! I forgot how much fun facing down those Alliance bastards could be. We'll have to do that again!"  
  
"Not right now." Tanaka said dryly. "We were kind of hopin' to keep a low profile here. We don't want to get pinched before we even get off planet."  
  
"There go the the fleshpots, Mal. I told you to get the barmaid's number." She said with the ghost of a smile. It drew startled looks from Tanaka and Rafe.  
  
"Zoe! Bi zui!" He replied with a strangled laugh, adding to the other men, "I'll explain. Later-right Zoe-later? Now's not the time."  
  
"We got passage." Tanaka said, ignoring their comments for the moment "Zoe's on the Hercules she's scheduled to lift off at oh-eight hundred day after tomorrow. It's a 7 day run to Shadow, with one port of call before arrival. We got berths on the Rose of Absolom for Verbena, she's shipping out the same day at eleven hundred. Should be there in 4 days. I reckon we should be on Boros with the Katana Maru after a couple of week's overhaul. We pick up the cargo there for a run to the outer rings, 3 weeks out heavy laden, two back empty and meet Zoe back here in nine weeks, near enough." They had been with a casual looking haste the whole while and arrived at 'The Pilot's Wife' as he said this.  
  
"Sounds good. We'll be packed and ready when you are." Mal said, obviously still in a high spirits from the fight.  
  
As he turned to go into the lobby with her, Zoe put an authoritative hand on his chest to stop him and said meaningfully, "I'm gonna go up and have another bath, Cap. Why don't you have a drink with the boys and I'll see you for breakfast." She gave them all the same sweetly knowing smile and disappeared into the hostel.  
  
Mal's good humor abated somewhat at their puzzled looks but returned when he acknowledged to himself if he was going to work with these men they ought to know the truth. Lying would be a poor way to start his apprenticeship. And if necessity forced him to tell the truth, it would be better done sooner than later. Too many lies made for untrustworthy allies and he needed these men as allies.  
  
"Your wife mad at us Mal?" Rafe inquired anxiously. "We didn't mean to get you in no trouble."  
  
"Well, about the wife thing." Mal said expansively, "Let me buy you boys a drink and tell you a funny story . . ."  
  
After the drink and the explanation, neither was at all put out by the deception. On the contrary, both felt it a very good joke on their erstwhile captors. When they learned, upon Rafe's delicate inquiry, that he and Zoe weren't grappling, they felt in honor bound to show him some of those very same establishments that he and Zoe had been discussing. Which, come to think on it, was probably what she had intended all along.  
  
And as it turned out there were some comely and willing women. One of whom did happen to be commercially minded and what with one thing and another, and another, he didn't roll in until nearly dawn. He had the consideration to take his boots off in the hallway so as not to wake her and tiptoed in to fall in bed pretty nearly fully dressed. Though he reckoned after sleeping light on the battlefield all those years, Zoe knew to the minute when he'd come in. Still the decencies were preserved and they could both pretend otherwise.  
  
When he woke up he found her in the bath again. "Woman, you're gonna prune up like a raisin if you keep this up." He hollered through the door at her. "I could eat a horse without stopping to skin it, come on out."  
  
She smiled serenely as she entered the room fully dressed with her curls damp around her face from the steam. She looked like the cat that got the canary and no mistake, but she forbore comment on his activities of the night before. She was like that. It was enough for her to be right, she didn't have to rub a man's nose in it.  
  
They went down to the café in the hostel and had eggs and bacon and biscuits and cup after cup of real, fragrant coffee while they worked out a simple code system in case of a need to communicate over the cortex. Then they went to the bank and rented a safe deposit box, either could enter it alone using just their finger print. If need be they could leave a message there for each other if something more complicated had to be communicated than their simple code allowed for. Feeling they had made all the plans they could, they went for a final meal and a drink.  
  
While they were sitting at the bar in companionable silence he told her, "You were right."  
  
"Shenme?" She looked inquiringly at him.  
  
"I should have given the barmaid a fall."  
  
"Ahh" she said in comprehension. "Not what you were hoping for then?"  
  
"Don't misread, I got what I paid for." He said reflectively. "It's just what I paid for wasn't really what I wanted, if you know what I mean.-Hell, I'm not sure I know what I mean."  
  
"What you wanted was for some gal to like you well enough to invite you into her bed, not someone who pretended to like you well enough because you paid her to. That gal at the restaurant did."  
  
"Ahh" he murmured in acknowledgement.  
  
"It's not really that complicated. It doesn't have to be a great big thing. Not every roll in the hay has to be more than just that. But for you it has to be more than just commerce." She chided him.  
  
Ruefully he said, "I always did say you know me better than I know myself." before lapsing back into comfortable silence. Knowing she was right might be enough for Zoe. Acknowledging it was something he had to do every now and again, just to keep himself honest.  
  
They went home at a decently early hour like the soberly married couple they were not and got a good night's sleep. Mal put her aboard the Hercules without incident the next morning and met Rafe and Tanaka at the Rose of Absalom for liftoff. It felt odd to be traveling without her. For close on 17 years he and Zoe hadn't spent more that a handful of weeks apart. It gave him an uncomfortableness. He felt adrift, lighter, as if someone had removed a limb. He found himself turning to pass a comment to her and was surprised to find her not there. He started to worry he had sent her into harms way without being there to back her play  
  
NEXT CHAPTER 6-The Katana Maru 


	6. The Katana Maru

**_CHAPTER 6—The Katana Maru  _**

**_Chinese Glossary_**

_Dong ma [undertstand__]_

****

**_PRESENT DAY_**

****

Fortunately for Mal's peace of mind, once the _Rose of Absalom was underway the first thing Tanaka did was to pull three heavy tomes out of his duffle.  He handed them to Mal, saying "We got four days until we make landfall on Verbena.  Might as well make the most of it.  I'm loaning you these. When we get back to Persephone you'll want to get copies for yourself." _

Mal took the well thumbed books and read the titles from their spines, _Lee's Handbook of Space Navigation and Ship Management; Economies and Cultures of the Settled Worlds; _and_ Alliance Code of Regulations for the Transportation, Import and Export of Goods. _

"Well this is powerful lot of reading to do in four days."  He said with an inquiring look.

"I don't expect you'll be able to get through any of the, but you need to start getting familiar with them.  Treat these here like Holy Writ.  I've been carrying _Lee's Ship Management since flight school. It the best book ever written on the basics.  It's clear, readable and well indexed.  Start with Chapter Five, the first four are on navigation, you'll be hiring a pilot so you can come back to those later."  _

"Chapter Five.  Okay, and the others?" 

"The Alliance Code ya gotta know, it'll tell you what to avoid, what to refuse outright, and what you need to hide when you can't avoid or refuse it.  It'll tell you how risky the cargo is and lets you figure your prices accordingly."  He smiled wolfishly.  Mal got the distinct impression that Mike Tanaka didn't refuse much.  "The good news is that one's free, just gotta go into any customs office for the latest edition.  This one's a mite out of date, I figure to stop in to get a new edition when we make landfall on Persephone again, can get you one then, too."

"Free's good.  Especially since it don't seem we'll be spending a lot of time following the rules.  And  _Economies_?

"This one is also a tad out of date, if I can find a later edition I'll give you this one. It's a listing of all the settled worlds.  Tells you the basic economy.  What's available for export what they need in the way of off-world imports and what they have to pay for it with.  Also, it'll keep you from ending up doing something really offensive to the locals and getting burned at the stake on some jerkwater moon you never heard of. _Dong ma_?

"Not getting burned, also good."  Mal said with a smile. 

After that he spent the rest of the voyage immersed in the books.  Never a great student, he nevertheless had an uncanny ability to devour books on subjects that interested him.  He'd read most of the great military works, Caesar, Sun Tzu,  Antoine Jimini, von Clauswitz,  Mao Tse Tung, and others over the course of the 9 years he'd been under arms.  It turned out he was equally fascinated with space flight. He'd come up for air at meals and eat with the text still swirling around in his head. 

Tanaka laughed at him but said he'd been much the same his first months, Rafe said it was the same with him.  They'd both been ready and willing to answer any questions.  He didn't ask many since he realized it would have more meaning for him once he was on a real transport and had the real thing before him.

They broke atmo a little after midday on Verbena.  Verbena was barely more than a piece of barren rock, with little to offer and scarcely surviving.  It had not been worth fighting for during the war and had been a wise choice to mothball a space ship.  Still, Tanaka had been no fool.  He'd left it in charge of an old friend, a crewman unable to enlist because of a leg lost in a terraforming accident on an Alliance press gang.  It had given him a lifelong enmity for the Alliance and an equally strong loyalty to Mike Tanaka who had taken him on as a cargo handler and assistant mechanic when no one else would have him. 

Pete Hansen had stayed with the _Katana Maru.  He lived aboard her and worked as a mechanic, did small jobs fixing tractors, mechanical mules and farming combines which was all the powered machinery this rock supported.  It was enough to keep body and soul together.  He had been expecting them and met them as they came down the ramp.  In his early thirties, a red-head, he was speckled like a trout with freckles.  He welcomed them with a huge grin, acknowledged introduction to Mal with a nod as he pumped Rafe's hand and pounded Tanaka on the on the back hard enough to leave a bruise._

They walked back to the _Katana dumped their duffels in their berths and immediately got stuck in.  Rafe took Mal to the engine room and started breaking down the engines as if for a complete refit.  In truth, Pete had kept them a treat, but Rafe wanted to see for himself and it gave him a way to take Mal through the basics.  _

"You might trust a man with your daughter, but never trust nobody with your engines," he said with his arms buried to the elbows in the Katy's engine and the look of a contented man.

After a day and a half of that, over evening chow Tanaka asked "Well Rafe, how's he doing?"

"Mike," he said with mock solemnity, "the best way to put it is as a ship's engineer, he'd make a hell of a plumber's mate."

Mal had grinned in appreciation, glancing at bloody knuckles and cut-up hands but saying nothing.  Pete choked off a laugh as Tanaka shot an inquiring look with his own ready smile starting.

"He can just about do what I tell him but he'll never be able to run a ship without a good mechanic that knows his business.  It'd be a kindness to put him in the way of hiring a decent one.   I reckon any more time on the Black Gang would be a pure-tee waist of his time, and more importantly, mine.  I'll finish faster without him."  He'd grinned at Mal to take the sting out of the words and received a sketchy salute in acknowledgement.

"Right. Then might as well see how you'll do as a pilot.  Got any flying experience at all?"

"Six weeks of light engine flight training in the Army, skiffs and helos mostly."

"Were you any good?"

"Above average but not outstanding I'd say.  Didn't get enough practice to ever get really good at it." 

"Well enough, we'll try that tomorrow."

It turned out that he was about average as a pilot on the shuttle and passable on atmospheric flight with the ship.  Anyone could steer in the black, once the course was laid in.  He'd never make a navigator though.  It required much higher math than he could handle and they just wouldn't have the time to get him up to scratch.  It wouldn't have mattered as much if he intended to only fly the beaten routes but if you planned to work the rim of the system, you needed a _by-god navigator to get you where you were going and back.  Especially if you needed to avoid customs inspections and Alliance checkpoints while you were about it._

What it turned out he did have was a real head for the business of ship's management.  In part it came from learning how to run the ranch from Mama all those years ago.  It seemed that calculating costs and profit and seeing the opportunity for trade came natural to him.  After all those years as a non-com in the Army he could lead men and had an eye for tactics so that was pretty well covered.   At meals Tanaka and Rafe would talk about their experiences running contraband before the war. Mal listened in fascination and drank it all in.  It was an advanced tutorial in shipcraft and he wasn't too proud to go to school.

He had been surprised at the _Katana Maru.  She was a __Hoshiko-__Marise _Samurai_ class.  Over engined for her class as the result of careful upgrades over the years, she was very fast but relatively small.  She could never carry much of a payload but could operate with a crew of one and three would be a full compliment.  One night the talk after dinner turned to the type of ship Mal should be in the market for._

"_Samurai_ class is not for you, Mal.  She's too costly in fuel and too small.  You and Zoe couldn't run it with just one crewman and the payload's too small to support the crew you'll need.  You need to be a lot more experienced at smuggling to make this small a payload support you."  Tanaka was speaking reflectively, almost thinking out loud. 

"No."  Tanaka went on, "The boat for you is a _Firefly_." 

"I don't know, Mike," Pete chimed in.  "I think pretty well of the _Sirocco.  It has maneuverability and a fair sized payload. Grauman makes a pretty reliable boat. She'd take a crew of four, no problem.  And you could buy into one cheaper than a __Firefly."_

"That's because the Gerstler engines Grauman used on the _Sirocco are crap.  It'd cost him more to fuel her over the long run then to just buy the Firefly."  Tanaka shot back._

"Plus," Rafe added in agreement, "the engine parts are too specialized for someone running their operation on a shoestring.  Hard to get replacements on the rim if something folds up on you, most likely expensive if you could get them."

Tanaka gave a grunt of agreement. "_Firefly is a good design.  Plenty of room for cargo and still take on passengers.  Takes up to a crew of six but you can run her with two in a pinch if it's a pilot and a mechanic.  Runs on common fuel cells, get 'em anywhere from the rim to the core.  Same with the parts.  Hell if you had to you could machine most of the parts yourself in a halfway decent machine shop.  Platform support for two shuttles.  Got a decent mechanic you could run a __Firefly for a hundred years.  Pilots like her too, she's a responsive bird."_

Rafe continued to nod solemnly as he explained. "Midbook made fifty thousand of them before it converted to war production, thousands are still in service and the ones that aren't are usually being parted out in salvage to keep the rest running.  Nothin' flash, ya understand. Just solid value at a reasonable price."

"Not looking for flash."  Mal nodded in agreement.  "I'll remember.  Midbook _Firefly"_

One evening, after a bone tiring day, Mal was leaning on the counter in the small galley waiting for the coffee to brew as Mike and Rafe had schematics of the _Katana's_ electrical system spread out on the small table before them trying to trace an elusive fault in the ignition sequence. They were getting close to finishing the refit so Mal asked when they would be mounting her ordnance. 

Rafe and Pete looked up in shock and Tanaka looked at him oddly for a minute like he was getting angry.  He started to speak then closed his mouth with a sigh and said "Sit down, Mal.  I guess we should have talked about this sooner but it just never occurred to me.  It figures comin' from the infantry you'd think in terms of artillery for protection, but it ain't like that on a ship." 

Mal looked inquiringly at the older man and brought a cup of coffee from the galley to the table.  Clearly there was something he wasn't clear on here.  

"The only use for ship mounted-armament is against a planetary target."  Tanaka looked up and caught Mal's eye and made sure Mal was looking back when he said, "Man who uses a ship to mount an armed assault on a planet bound foe is already more than half-way to bein' a Reaver himself.  I'm a smuggler, not a pirate and I'll not help the man who thinks to become one.  If I thought you didn't see the force of my logic I'd maroon you here or be forced to end you in space, did I come across you later.  Is there an understanding between us?"  

Although Mal didn't cotton to the threat implicit in the man's statement, it was clear he'd come up against some bedrock of Tanaka's personal code. He understood full well about lines that couldn't be crossed and he saw that this was one of those for Mike Tanaka and he'd learned to respect the man. So he contented himself with a nod of agreement, waiting for the logic to be explained to him.

"It's like this," Tanaka said as he rubbed his hand over his face. They had been humping long hours to get the ship space-worthy and it was obviously taking him a bit to put it in words for a landsman, which despite the best intentions in the world was still all Mal was. "No transport can mount enough armament to be any damn good against the cruisers the Alliance spaces. Those are behemoths. Big as a city. So your only defense there is for them not to want you. Not to see you. You got to fly under the radar and off their charts."

Rafe added "I was a gunner for seven years Mal, and I'll tell you this, those babies are ruinoulsy expensive, they're touchy, you need a huge investment in ammunition which seriously reduces your payload and is damn risky to have on board.—For what? You go up against an Alliance ship and fire off the kind of pop-gun a transport would mount, you, your ship and you crew will be vapor faster than you can say it." 

"The other risk is Reavers." Tanaka said. Adding with heavy emphasis as he caught sight of the arrested look on Mal's face. "Oh yeah, they are real. Not just bogey men to frighten naughty children."

"Always figured there might be some truth to the stories, just never figured it would be something I'd ever have to deal with. Makes sense though, just hadn't thought it through." Mal said thoughtfully.

"I've come up against Reavers more than oncet and lived to tell the tale, there's not many can say the same." Tanaka said with a hardness not usually apparent in the older man. "You can fight 'em in the world, but not in space. In space if they see ordnance they will target your ship and they won't stop. It's their way. They don't care if they die, they just keep coming until there aren't anymore. They don't shield their drives, gives 'em all kinds of advantage. I don't know why they are the way they are. Some say they used to be men oncet. All I know, they looked at the abyss too long and it looked back hard enough to devour their souls." 

Tanaka got quiet. He looked like he was looking inward at a sight he didn't want to see, at something that populated his nightmares, as he said. "Reavers come upon your ship in space you wait 'em out to see if they want you. If you turn tail and run before that they'll always give chase, it's their way. Sometimes they don't want you. Ya just gotta wait and see. If they do want you, run like all the fiends of Hell are on your tail, 'cause they are. And if they board, save the last bullet in your gun for yourself because if they take the ship, they'll rape anyone they find alive, eat their flesh and take their skins as trophies.  If God is merciful, that will be the order they do it in.  I saw a ship oncet where the crew weren't that lucky."

Throughout the gruesome repetition Rafe Arreola had sat mute, nodding his head like a wise old mandarin with sad compassionate eyes. He spoke at last. "Your nightmares are of the Valley and the men you lost there, but those were lost to a cause, never mind how needless. Ships and crew lost to the Reavers are lost to no cause but darkness."

Somehow it seemed an epitaph. The moment lingered before Tanaka visibly shook off the ghosts of what had been. "So no ordnance, _dong ma_?" He said with a straight look.

"_Dong ma_!" Mal replied without his usual levity, so Mike would see he meant it, realizing once again how much he had to learn about his adopted life.

After nearly two weeks of refit and test flight the _Katana Maru was ready for the Black.  Pete had come up the day before they were scheduled to lift, kneading his leg where the stump joined the prosthetic, cap in his hand._

"Got something needs saying, Mike."

Tanaka looked up from the chart he had been studying and gave the younger man his attention.  

The words came in a rush, as if he had been planning out what to say, but was afraid if he paused for a breath he'd never get it out.  "Can't fly with you this trip.  Black, she ain't  home to me no more.  Never thought I would, but I done set roots deep here and I'm thinking I can't pull up stakes here like I thought I could.  I know I owe you.  I feel like _go-se, but I just can't!"  After nine years on Verbena it was his home.  He had a gal he'd been courting for years and they decided to make it formal.  He was going to move to her people's place on the other side of the settlement.  _

"It's okay, Pete," Tanaka said gently.  "I got no mind to deny any man his own place.  You don't owe me a thing.  Taking care of the _Katy the way you did, we're more than square.  I'll send your share of the take when we collect from Badger."_

Pete had looked up anxiously at that. "Aww, Mike, you don't owe me anything from this job.  I ain't done nothing to earn it."

"You surely did.  If you hadn't kept the _Katy _new copper bright we wouldn't be able to make the deadline on the deal.  You'll need a stake to buy in to a new place, won't want to be staying for long with your in-laws.  That's a recipe for disaster in any marriage."  Tanaka said with enough sincerity to make everyone in the room feel that he knew personally whereof he spoke.

"Don't think I can accept it."  Pete said with all the stubbornness of the proudly independent poor.

"We'll see."  Was all Tanaka said.  

So the last thing they did before leaving atmo was take Pete and his gal up and marry them. Tanaka performed the service with becoming solemnity while Rafe stood up for Pete as his best man.   The only others present in the tiny common room were the girl's parents who seemed nervous at being in space and anxious to get back on solid ground. They set them down, wished them well, then set course for Boros.  

Settlement of the Rim had been all but abandoned during the war, although some terraforming had continued on planets where the process was already well advanced.  Now that the war had ended, the Core planets were looking to solve the twin problems of uncontrolled underclass population growth and demand for scarce resources by resuming large scale colonization of the Rim worlds.  During the past fifteen months while Mal and Zoe had been interned, the Feds had been massing supplies in the form of hard subsidies on Boros as a jumping off point for colony ships. Boros had a good sized Federal presence and was conveniently located for a push to the outer planets.  It was a ripe plum ready for harvest.

The deal proposed by Tanaka's pre-war contact on Persephone was to boost a shipment of gen-seed and DNA herd scrip along with as much Grade A foodstuff supplement bars as the _Katana Maru could lift and transport it direct to the Rim.  There it would fetch a good price among those already settled in hardpan colonies which were currently being ignored by the Alliance because of their suspected sympathies with the Independents during the war.  _

Tanaka's contact would supply the name of a man at the storage depot as would give them the entry to the goods and look the other way as the goods went out the door.  In exchange Badger would draw twenty-five percent off the top.  With Mal, Rafe and Pete each promised ten percent of the gross, that left forty-five percent for Mike, out of which he had to pay all expenses and refuel the _Katy._ Mike had grimaced as he explained the deal to Mal, upon Mal's inquiring look he'd explained.

"Forty-five percent is awful lean to pay me and  keep the ship in fuel and repair.  Couldn't do it on a regular basis.  Doesn't leave much for a safety cushion and practically nothing for me, lucky if I make five percent for my share.   I always try to draw the line at fifty percent for me and the ship, even if it all goes to the _Katy.   But gotta get a stake somewhere and Badger's likely to have other jobs to throw our way."_

"What's his story?"  Mal asked 

"Little runt of a fella, originally from Dyton Colony.  Started out before the war running guns out of Persephone.  During the war switched to black market luxury goods.  Got a finger in most pies on Persepone.  Buys info from lots of sources sets up jobs for outfits like us and takes a percentage.  All the profit, none of the risk.

"Sounds like a huckleberry, alright."

"Well, there's worse, I guess, though probably not many.  With most of the folks you find yourself working for in this line, the best thing is to trust no one and always have a Plan B." Tanaka had given the wolfish grin Mal was coming to recognize.

"I expect you always do have a Plan B."

"That's why I made it to be such an old man in a business where most die young."

They used the three day boost to Boros to introduce Mal to the rigors of zero gee EVA work.  Rafe had asked if he'd ever worn a pressure suit.  After being informed there was little need for it in ranching cattle or shooting Alliance soldiers, he had given Mal an evil smile as he said "Well, you are in for a real treat then."

The first thing he did was lay out the suit on the deck of the cargo hold and go over it with Mal inch by inch.  Then he inflated it and left if on the deck for three hours. Satisfied it was impermeable, he took Mal through the tedious process of suiting up.

"Always buy the best suit you can. It's no place to skimp.  You're going to be doing some serious work in the suit.  You need one that will stand the gaff."  He explained intently, looking directly at Mal to emphasize the gravity of his words.  "If you have to go out on the side of the boat to fix something it's like to be a life or death matter in the first place but even if the ship isn't dead in space _any_ mistake in a p-suit will kill you in a very ugly way, _dong ma?"_

_"Dong ma." _

Then he made Mal suit up and left him in the damn thing for twenty-four hours.  Mal learned at uncomfortable first hand the joys of p-suit septic disposal and just how lukewarm water from a canteen nipple tastes when you've been suited up in your own stink for hours.  Only after he'd been in the thing all day and Rafe had run him through countless drills in the cargo hold did they venture out of the ship.  

Mal found zero-gee maneuvering a luxury after packing the suit and tank in normal gravity for over a day.  It turned out he was going to be pretty good at it.  He grasped very quickly the principal that very little effort was required to overcome inertia and once overcome nothing would stop the momentum but counter movement.  Rafe had him maneuver massy objects of varying dimensions off, on and around the ship.  When they came back in Rafe reported to Mike that he was a natural.  Mal hadn't felt so proud since the first time he got his sergeant's stripes.

Tanaka and Rafe kept Mal so busy the three days were a blur of drills and EVA exercises, and then they were entering atmo at Boros and getting docking permission from the port tower.  They touched down and powered down, looking for all the world like an innocent trader awaiting arrival of legitimate cargo.


	7. Subdue All Things

I apologize for the delay in posting. Unfortunately real life sometimes gets in the way. If you have begun this story have patience gentle reader, I promise to finish it.  Please feel free to make any critical comments, I am always happy to get suggestions, I even follow them sometimes.  With thanks again to Archer for his Beta, and to Harri Vane for her suggestions.

While Mal is learning the ropes aboard the  _Katana__ Maru  , Zoe is headed for Shadow and a meeting with Marcus Avery._

7-Glossary

_ Chao-shang tza-jiao duh tzang-huo  _  [Animal-fucking bastard]

_ Kuan-Yin   _ [Goddess of Mercy]

_ zhàngfu_      [husband]

_ bu gong dai tian_    [will not live under the same sky (with one's enemy)] 

 _nî__ hâo mêi  xiâo mèimei    [ you're so beautiful baby sister]_

 CHAPTER SEVEN—SUBDUE ALL THINGS

IN THE PRESENT

Zoe stood in the observation lounge of the  _Hercules__   watching Shadow's dappled form, circled by her twin moons, blossom in the view port.  The last time she had seen it, Shadow had been receding, growing smaller as the troop transport strained into the Black from her gravity well. She, Mal and many of the friends they had grown up with had watched their childhoods dwindle with her.   After Hera, after the camp, she'd never expected to come home again.  Maybe it wasn't really a homecoming, Rhiade was gone and Mal wasn't here.  Maybe she was only visiting the grave of her youthful idealism, but it hurt a little, whatever it was.  Silently calling herself all kinds of foolish, she intentionally shook off the melancholy mood and returned to her cramped berth to prepare for planetfall._

She had been on the  _Hercules__   for a week.  The ship was a midsized passenger vessel with berths for 50 passengers.   They didn't have a full complement, a few family groups but mostly Alliance bureaucrats and unaccompanied military officers either coming from or going to a new posting, with a leavening of businessmen.  It had been the best Mike and Rafe could do.  Not really their kind of crew but they knew the second officer and it was the only thing headed Shadow's way in a month._

She was the only unaccompanied woman and it had aroused some notice.  She had consciously decided to wear the wedding ring in hope that it would put off some of the attention.  Maybe it had, but not enough.  The first meal she had taken the smallest possible table with seating for only one other person but neglected to ask the purser to remove the second chair.   

She was enjoying her meal.  The fresh vegetables taken on at Persephone were heavenly.  Zoe was just deciding that salad and fruit with every meal was one luxury she could definitely get used to when she was paid for her thoughtlessness.  She looked up to see one of the Federal officers put his hand on the back of the empty chair and murmur as if the answer was a foregone conclusion.

"May I join you?"

She had noticed him in the lounge while waiting to be taken to her table.  What she had mostly noticed was the look he was giving her, like he was the lord of all he surveyed.  Tall and well favored if you went in for pretty boys, his tailored uniform screamed  _Core_ _aristo__   and the insolent stare told her no one had ever said no to him and made it stick._

She looked at him for a long silent moment then glanced pointedly around the cabin before she said "Appears there are plenty of open places."

"Ahh, but the scenery here is so much more attractive."   He said it with heavy innuendo and what he, no doubt, thought was irresistible charm.  It made Zoe smile in a way that many a young recruit could have told him did not bode well for the object of her mirth. 

"Do you think so," her eyes flicked to the rank pips on his collar, "Major?"

"You're familiar with military ranks?"  He preened himself with palpable self-satisfaction.  

Cognizant of her role as the civilian wife of an Independent officer she left unspoken her inner thought, ' _The__ better to shoot you by, my fine young dandy  .'_

"You'rewearing a Hussar's uniform and that's a campaign ribbon from Du-Khang--My_  zhàngfu__   --was at Du-Khang and Serenity Valley." She said without inflection._

Hussars were the elite light armored calvary of the Alliance forces. Commonly used for reconnaissance and raiding in advance of the army.  In battle the Alliance used them to  harass skirmishers, overrun artillery positions, and pursue fleeing troops. Troops they pursued did not surrender after Du-Khang.  The 442nd Artillery out of New Edo, named for the legendary regiment of Nisei soldiers on  _Earth-that-was  _, had been outnumbered and islolated from the main Independent forces for five days, no food, no water, no medical aid and no hope of relief.  Cut off and totally surrounded by the Hussars they had casualties amounting to over two thirds of their force before they made the decision to surrender.  They were slaughtered to a man. Tet had a brother and two cousins in that unit.

Seeing him stiffen in surprise and suddenly seem doubtful of the power of his charm, she added, "He was interned on Hera for over a year after that.  So you could say I am intimately familiar with military ranks."  

She watched his momentary hope that she was a grieving Alliance war widow shatter.  The look she gave him made it seem as if an icy wind had blown through the dining room.  He had probably never been hated up close enough to actually feel it before.  It shook his sense of complacent superiority.  

With the perfect physical stillness of the trained sniper and contempt so razor sharp he flinched with every word, she said clearly, "I don't break bread with butchers, even pretty ones, boy."  She rose gracefully and left the room with her soldier's upright carriage.

Zoe entered her cabin, closed the hatch and leaned against it.  She found that she was shaking with surpressed rage and an almost overmastering desire to go back and gut that  _chao__-shang_ tza-jiao duh tzang-huo   _like a fish. Breathing deeply until she regained mastery over her emotions, she began to laugh softly to herself.  Sweet  __Kuan_-Yin  _, Mal had the rights of it, if dealing with these bastards left her in this shape, he'd have never made Shadow alive.  _

She was worrried about him.  It was second nature for Zoe King to worry about Malcolm Reynolds.  No one knew him like she did.  No one knew when he had to be talked, or chivied or wheedled out of doing something stupid and when there was no talking to him at all and you just had to hang on for the ride.  She couldn't have let him come alone.  At least he had Rafe and Mike to watch his back. With a pang she realized even that might not be enough.   She'd long since accepted that one of them might die at anytime.  There were no guarantees in war, after all.  What she couldn't accept was not being with him if it happened. One of the harder things she'd done in a life filled with hard things had been to bid him a casual farewell at the passenger ramp of the  _Hercules.  They hadn't been separated for more than a few weeks since they were kids. If anything happened to him and she wasn't there, she'd never forgive herself, or him either, if it came to that._

For a small fee Zoe had been able to activate the cortex screen in her cabin.  She arranged with the purser to take her meals in her cabin for the rest of the trip--no sense tempting fate.  She began by looking at the cortex news archives for Shadow.  She chose to begin with the dates for the Battle of Serenity because that's when she lost touch with the news herself.  From that time on they either didn't get any news or they got news censored by their Alliance captors, which amounted to the same thing.

Hours after she began, she blanked the cortex screen and sat back.  She felt numb with grief.  As she read the news reports she had seen before her again the carnage of the Valley.  She lived through Tet's death all over and felt the horror of her realization that even after the surrender there would be no relief. It was as if she had been scalded with acid but couldn't scream with the pain of it.

Her eyes were grainy with exhaustion and her muscles ached from sitting in one position but she had what could be gleaned from published reports about Rhiade's death.  How Avery, under color of martial law as the military magistrate, had ordered her executed without trial or benefit of advocate, on charges of conspiracy to commit insurrection. More useful, for her present purpose, she even had the press release and official biography on him released when he was posted to the planet.

She looked at the ship's chronometer, mounted above the cortex screen as she sat back.  It was the middle of the third watch, the lights with which the ship held the Black at a distance had been powered down for several hours.  Ships, like planets, have days and nights, the human body demands a cycle based on the primal revolution of Earth-that-was.  Most planets and moons settled by men had a similar cycle since they were selected for their likeness to the cradle of mankind's birth.  The  _Hercules__   operated on the day cycle of her world of registry, Osiris.  Passengers accomodated themselves to the circadian rythms of the vessels in which they traveled._

She rose and stretched.  Suddenly the tiny cabin with its narrow bunk and and collapsible basin and toilet felt too much like a cell. Hollow eyed with fatigue and grief she had to get out.   She needed to look at the stars. Walking quietly through the empty gangway, the only sound was the thrum of the engines through the metal deck plating.  She entered the observation lounge and approached the port to stand looking out at the stars. A memory stirred just below the level of her conscious awareness until it settled, fully formed in her mind.  The stars didn't look like they did from Shadow, not like she could reach out and pull them out of the sky.  This memory came from before that. 

IN THE BEFORE 

She was hiding on her father's lap the night of her mother's funeral.  They were on the bridge of the  _Atticus__ Finch  , the rest of the crew had respected their need to be alone together with the stars.  Her mother had been the  __Attie's__   engineer. She'd been working in a EVA suit seeing to a minor glitch with the nav-sats when a micro-meteor had pierced the chest of her suit.  She'd had no time to do anything, although they suited up for an emergency rescue, just like all the drills.  Her mother's spirit had fled before they brought the body in.  _

Mama had been born on a planet, they buried her in space, in between she had lived her life within the hulls of a ship.  Papa read the service for  _Burial in Space  _ from the same  _Book of Common Prayer  _ from which Mal would read his own funeral service two years later.  She could still hear Papa's deep sonorous voice breaking in grief as he intoned the committal.

_ 'UNTO Almighty God we commend the soul of Maggie King, we commit her body to the Black; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection unto eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ; at whose coming the Black shall give up its dead according to the mighty working whereby He is able to subdue all things unto himself. Amen   '_

She was just past nine years old.  Her whole world had broken and the only refuge she could find was huddled on her father's lap with her ear pressed to his chest.  She could hear the slow steady beat of his heart mirroring the pulse of the  _Attie's engines as she wept herself into exhaustion.  The rapid beating of her own heart gradually stilled to keep time with Papa's and the mighty beating heart of the ship, a union of perfectly shared grief.  When she looked at him she could see the tears that he refused to let fall._

"Papa, why did God let something that bad happen to Mama?  I didn't think God was mean, I thought he loved us."

He had taken a ragged breath before trying to answer her.  " _Baobei__  , I cant explain why bad things happen, no one else can either, only God knows, but He does love us."_

"How can he?  If I loved someone I wouldn't take away their Mama." She'd demanded angrily.

"I know God loves us because of the love I have for you and Mama.  Only a loving God could create a world so alive to the possibility of love."

"You don't hurt the people you love."  She said stubbornly.  She had been independent from the cradle and willful with it.  No one was going to make her mind up for her.  Papa had wanted to show her why he had faith but he'd accepted that he couldn't make her believe or give her his own belief. 

"Zoe, you know when you went into the engine room that time and started to mess around with the grav boot when Mama wasn't looking?"  He asked gently.  

She'd been seven at the time, and she had managed to get the cover plate off and was about to poke her hand in to the highly charged guts of it when Mama had caught her.  She nodded wordlessly.  Mama had set her bottom on fire.  She hadn't felt comfortable sitting for quite a spell and the engine room had been off limits for even longer.

"Mama loved you even though she hurt you.  You were little at the time and you didn't understand why she did it but she still did it out of love.  God's like that, he knows so much more than we can and sometimes he does things we can't understand, even things that make us mad at him.  But he always loves us."

She looked at him, her gazed fixed on him unwaveringly with the effort to understand.

"God didn't promise that life would be easy or that there would be no pain.  All he promises us is that the universe is full of beauty and the possibility of love.  It's his gift to us.  What we do with that possibility he leaves to us.  Look here. . ."  And he had swung around the pilots chair to gesture towards the stars outside the port. They looked like diamonds flung from the hand of God onto the velvet cloak of night.  

"Those stars are far away and they don't hardly look like nothing but a dot of light.  But if we keep going towards one of them, we get closer all the time and one day it isn't a star anymore.  It's a sun and the power of its light gives life to planets.--God's like that--we have to keep on going through all the parts of our life, the hurtful and the pleasing and then we learn about Him in a whole different way.  It doesn't matter if sometimes you are mad at God while you're travelling, He understands.  All He asks is that you keep on going."

She had pondered that awhile, then said seriously, "Well, I can tell you I am real mad at him and I ain't getting' over it soon."

"That's my Zoe."  He said smothering a sob with the ghost of a laugh.  "Just promise me that you will always try to be open to the possibility of love and you can be as mad at God as you want.  'Cause if you love anyone sooner or later you will thank God for letting them come into your life."  

They hadn't talked anymore that night.  Papa held her and rocked her back and forth in the pilots chair looking at the stars and hummed  _Amazing__ Grace   to the bass rumble of the engines, until she fell asleep in the safe refuge of his arms. _

Seemed like, what with one thing and another, she'd been mad at God half her life.  She'd gotten used to it, and she guessed God had too.  It was different with Mal.  He'd never been mad at God before the Valley, so when he did get mad, it tore a big hole in that part of his life where his faith lived.  He thought it meant he didn't believe anymore--no one had told him that it was okay to be mad at God.   

IN THE PRESENT

She didn't know how long she had been staring out at the Black when she heard the sound of someone entering the lounge.   He entered quietly, but she hadn't stayed alive all these years without knowing when someone was coming up behind her.  She could see him in the reflection of the glass without turning her head.  He was an erect elderly man, of African descent, he had an indefinable air of fragility, although he appeared fit enough.  He stood quietly behind her for a few moments then coughed genteelly into his hand in an apparent attempt to catch her attention.  She turned and looked inquiringly at him.

"I beg your pardon, miss," he said in the cultured accent of some Core world she couldn't place.   He was dressed expensively but not gaudily, in subdued colors but rich fabric.  He seemed hesitant.

"I hope I don't intrude, but I heard you speaking with Major Williams at dinner and I inferred from your half of the conversation that you were at Du-Khang with the Independants?

Zoe raised one eyebrow in silent inquiry.  She had found that most people were uncomfortable with silence and if she simply remained quiet others could be rushed into speech.  Speech that was sometimes informative, and that was important because it was very possible that she was about to be in a world of hurt here.  Not even a month out of camp and here she was heading for where she was forbidden to be.  The more she knew before she had to act the better.  _Tamade__  !  _

After a moment it became clear that he was not a man to be pushed into unconsidered speech.  So she tried another tack.  "I think you misunderstood, sir.  I mentioned that my  _zahngfu was at Du-Khang and your inferrin' was accurate, he fought with the Independents."_

"Come, miss, please, credit me with eyes to see.  It is clear to one of who takes the trouble to observe, among whom Major Williams is apparently not numbered, that you have been a soldier.  A long time soldier, if I am any judge."

"You're mistaken, sir," she said calmly, all the while thinking that Mal was going to be sadly disappointed that she had gotten pinched before she even made landfall.  And she had been worried about him!

"No, gentle lady, I am not mistaken.  Neither am I at all interested in involving you with the gendarmarie.  I am interested in learning what you know about the Independent Marine Expeditionary Force on Du-Khang."  He looked at her steadily and calmly, allowing her to stare back in return as she made up her mind.

"Why are you interested in the MEF?  I'm sure there was plenty broadcast on the cortex during the battle."  She asked, trying to stall for time to think what her next move should be.  There was no way to escape if he chose to tell the captain.  Retina scan or DNA swab'd tell them who she was.  Feds had taken both in the camp.  Would'n't take no more than an hour on the cortex and they'd know everything about her.

He interrupted her thoughts, saying, "My only son was a Major with the Marines.  He fell at Du-Khang."  Anguish was discernable only in the extreme stillness with which held himself.  It was as if he were controlling something so tightly, the slightest movement would cause it to spin out of control.

Zoe's eyes softened as she looked at him.  He was a very old man grieving for his own lost kin.  He represented no threat to her and he deserved to know what she could tell him.  In all truth, it was little enough.

"I was at Du Kang.  I was a corporal, we, my . . . husband and I were with the Army Air Calvary."  Seeing his look of confusion she added, "All that meant was that instead of landing on the planet in big ITC 220's--troop carriers, we dropped from light-armoured shuttles. We could be shredded by ground based artillery.   We were supposed to drop into areas already taken, or at least softened up.  It was the Marines who did the softening."  She paused to see if he was following her.  He nodded in comprehension, his eves never leaving her face.  She went on.

"We were surprised at Du-Kang, faulty intelligence on enemy numbers and placement.  Marines took very heavy casualties, they had a motto, you know, the MEF.  It summed up what they did.  " _No_ beach out of reach  _."  It means that no matter what, they secured our landing zones," she explained.  "On Du-Kang that cost' em a lot of good men.  I expect your son was among them. No one lays down their life like that unless they think its important, so I reckon he did.  Maybe if he hadn't been there, I wouldn't be here.  Don't know if that's any comfort to you.  Like as not, it ain't.  "_

There was an indefinable loosening of the tension as he heard her out.  Then he abruptly sat down, as if the strings on a marionette had been cut. "Forgive an old man a momentary weakness," he said after a moment.  

She could see his eyes were glassy with unshed tears.  Du-Khang seemed a lifetime ago to her, but really it was only three years.  This father's grief was still raw enough to unman him in front of a stranger.  He visibly drew himself together and seeming to feel that something was required, he said, "My name is Josiah M'bele.  My son was Major Jon M'Bele.  We had not spoken for many years before he died."  

He sighed deeply as he passed his hands over his face in bewilderment.  Zoe reached out and put a hand on his shoulder.  He looked up in gratitude "I thought of him as a traitor to his culture.  He resigined his commission in the Federal Marines to enlist with the Independents.  He tried to explain why, but I could never be brought to listen.  I supported Unification, you see.  And now I will never have the chance to tell him how much I loved him.  He died, thinking I didn't love him."  After a pause he added softly as if he was speaking only to himself, "I expect to be damned for that," he said.

After another moment he pulled himself together and rose "I have business on Shadow which will keep me there for several months.  If during that time I can be of any assistance to you in any way, I hope you'll do me the honor of calling on me."  He pressed an old fashioned business card into her hand.  When she looked down, it read simply  _Josiah__ M'Bele, Factor  . _

She looked inquiringly at him and asked "What does a factor do?"  He gave her an attractive smile and for the first time she could see that he must have been a very handsome man in his youth. 

 "Oh, a little of this and a little of that.  I will leave you to enjoy your solitude now.  You must not judge us all by the Major Williams of the world.  I hope to have the pleasure of dining with you before we make planetfall."  He gave a formal little bow and withdrew from the lounge as if it were a private salon.

After that he made it a point to stop by her cabin before each meal and invite her to share his table.  The first time she had been hesitant, intending to decline but he had said with his courtly civility, "No good will come of hiding from it.  You lost your war, yet you still live.  The best revenge you can exact is to live  _wel__  l.  That includes sharing a table in the presence of your enemies.  Humor an old man, come this once and if it is not a success you can always resume taking meals alone."    _

It had been so much like something Mal might have said that it surprised a ripple of laughter out of her and she had agreed. It had been a success, perhaps the sweetest part of which had been the looks of chagrin on the faces of Major Williams and his cronies.  It made her crow with silent laughter when M'bele caught her eye, inclined his head in his courtly fashion at that fine young cock 'o the walk, and gave her a wink.

It surprised her that she could like someone who had supported Unification, but she found that she did like him.  They spoke of many things. She described her upbringing both on the  _Atticus__ Finch   and on Shadow.  He described the wonders only to be seen on the Core worlds.  They discussed books and history, ancient rather than modern. He described how his son was the much-desired child of his old age.  He talked at length of what a joyful blessing he had been, and spoke regretfully of his anger when this beloved child had walked away from the glittering life that had been given him, just for an idea.  During their last meal together she told him how Mal and Rhiade had taken her in and how Rhiade had died._

"That is despicable.  It makes a criminal of every person who supported Unification.  He has made me complicit to murder.  He should be reported to his superiors," he said in genuine anger.

"Cortex said he got a commendation from those same superiors for the ' _pacification__  ' of Shadow.  I'm thinking not much would be done to him over one women whose son and step-daughter had been Browncoat rebels for near a decade."  She said it matter-of-factly.  He looked at her sharply, with the acute intelligence she had come to see was his defining characteristic._

"But you, gentle lady, you are not the type to accept that, and even less is your Malcolm."  He said with a sharp look.  "No, the man who you describe at the battle of Du-Khang,_  bu_ gong dai tian _, he would not let the murder of his mother go un-avenged."_

Nothing we can do now, won't cost us our lives.  It would be an insult to her memory to throw our lives away," she said evasively.

He looked at her closely then, apparently satisfied, said, "It will not always be thus.  Well, please remember, if the occasion arises, that I do not like to be complicit in the murder of innocents."  He had taken his formal leave of her at the door of her cabin, rather oddly, saying, "I will bid you good night but not goodbye, since I hope we meet again. I wish you good hunting."

That night she sent a wave to Jimmy Chiang.  It read only, ' _Silence__ is golden  '.  The text would list the originating source as the passenger liner  __Hercules__  .  The arrival times would be posted on the cortex.  She expected someone would meet her and she was right.  As she walked down the ramp carrying a leather satchel and wearing a nondescript duster, she saw Jimmy himself standing idly to the side of the landing zone.  A small, wiry, energetic man, like many of pure Chinese heritage, he didn't show his years.  He looked exactly the same as the day Zoe first rode into the Reynolds' spread and could have been any age from forty to seventy.  She didn't acknowledge him, heading past him toward the city proper.  He peeled off and followed loosely behind her, only overtaking her after assuring himself that no one was taking an undue interest in their progress.  When she finally turned to greet him she found him with his arms open to receive her murmuring " __Nî_ hâo mêi xiâo mèi mei_.  " as she settled into his embrace, she realized in some sense Shadow would be home as long as there were people here she loved. _

Next--Chapter 8 


	8. Boros

THE PRICE PAID--CHAPTER EIGHT-- BOROS  
  
Mal is learning all the skills to become a smuggler and ruining a brand new shirt. With many thanks for the beta to Channain and to Harri Vane for her reminder of what an ER waiting room is really like. Feed back gratefully accepted. Please do not archive without advance permission and know that these characters are not mine, they belong to Mutant Enemy and Joss Whedon.  
  
Chinese Glossary  
  
bai fan [plain cooked rice/rice with nothing to go with it]  
  
jia xiang ji [home town chicken (a type of dish)]  
  
Dong ma [understand]  
  
Wode tian! [Oh God!]  
  
Ai ya [Damn]  
  
shu ren [acquaintance/friend]  
  
IN THE PRESENT  
  
It was agreed that Rafe would wait with the ship while Tanaka and Mal met the contact at a local dive. "The ship always comes first. If you got no ship, you got nothing, you're on the drift. First job, in the black or in port, is to secure the ship," Tanaka explained. Although some ships had fairly sophisticated ignition interlock security systems, Tanaka preferred to rely on an armed presence aboard the Katy until they had a better feel for conditions in the port.  
  
A buzzing red neon sign garishly announced the entrance to Sam Choy's, a seedy, working-class tavern near the back gate of the supply depot. They were to play pool until the contact appeared, so they spent several hours nursing a couple of beers and disinterestedly working the pool table, taking turns letting each other win.  
  
It was almost last call before they were approached by a nondescript man in the uniform of the Alliance Colonization Corps who sidled up and mentioned Badger's name. From his accent, Mal made him for a conscript; the sort who had been given the choice to enlist or serve a penal sentence. They bought another round of beers and settled at a table to discuss matters with the corpsman when they got their first inkling that things might not go as smoothly as planned.  
  
"We got a bit of a problem," were the first words out of his mouth, his eyes darting nervously around the room.  
  
Mal and Tanaka looked at each other, then Tanaka said "What kind of a problem would that be, friend?"  
  
"The fella as was supposed to get the goods off the depot was bound-by-law over a bit of domestic set-to." Seeing Tanaka's look of inquiry he added, "Seems his wife was steppin' out on him and he took a tire iron to her and her fancy-man. Killed the fella, left the wife for dead. That being the case, he's not like to be of any help to us now."  
  
Mal cursed fluently in Mandarin, as Tanaka inquired, "Is there any other way of getting the goods out?"  
  
"There's a new driver on the route. I don't know any way to approach him," the corpsman said with a grimace. "He's kind of a straight arrow. Don't think we can risk trying to buy him."  
  
"Got any other weakness as could be turned to account?" Tanaka asked pragmatically.  
  
He began ticking off the most likely weaknesses on the fingers of one hand as he recited them "No girlfriends, or boyfriends that I know of. "Not a drinker or gambler. Seems to be a loner. Eats at the same bar every night, has a couple of beers, then heads for the barracks by 23:00. Nothin' I've been able to get a handle on, and I been trying." He said in apparent frustration.  
  
Mal interjected "Mike, I'm getting an inkling here, but I think we got to  
  
work this through a bit," he said as he looked at the older man meaningfully.  
  
"I'll tell you what, friend," Tanaka said to the contact, "We'll get back to you on what's doing. Meet you here tomorrow." When the corpsman nodded agreement,Tanaka collected Mal with a look and they headed back to the Katy.  
  
Rafe was glum as they reported what happened. The small man had lost his customary good humor as he contemplated the wasted trip. Tanaka turned to Mal expectantly after they finished the recitation. "Well, let's hear this inkling, then."  
  
"You fella's ever hear of a 'Mickey Finn'?"  
  
Rafe shook his head negatively, but Tanaka nodded with a look of enlightenment.  
  
"Happened to one of my troopers, on liberty just before the New Terra campaign. He was three days overdue, didn't make the jump. Terra was short, sharp and ugly. We were back to restage within the month. He was in the brig when we got back; they were looking at him for desertion under fire.  
  
"He'd always been a good boy, steady, you know. So when he said he'd just had the one beer with a gal and woke up broke, heaving his guts out, with a head the size of a watermelon, I believed him. Insisted on a drug screen. They found byphodine, it's an anesthetic. Leaves traces in the blood for a good month--longer than that in hair. Some whores mix it in a fella's drink, makes a pimp roll easier and no risk of the john resisting, they call it a 'Mickey Finn'."  
  
Rafe asked "Ahhh, Mal? I'm with you now, but where we gonna get this stuff? Sounds kinda' hard to come by to me."  
  
Tanaka answered for him. "Place like Boros, big Alliance presence, bound to have a well-stocked ER at the local clinic."  
  
Mal nodded agreement. "All we need to do is come up with a way to steal the stuff, dope this guy's drink and steal his truck. We can go in and load up with our own shopping list, drive out the main gate, waved on by Badger's man--easy-peasy."  
  
"Guys, I hate to piss on everybody's parade, but how we gonna do that without letting every Fed on the planet know it's the Katy lifting with a hi-jacked cargo?" Rafe inquired sardonically.  
  
It was Mal's turn to grin. "That's the beauty of byphodine, it puts a man out for a couple of days. Busy port like Boros, bound to have lots of ships lifting in that kind of window. By the time they realize what happened to their man, we'll be dust in the wind." Mal saw his own smile reflected in the faces of the other men. "Now as to how to get the right drug, that's a bit more of a puzzler."  
  
Rafe stood as Mal finished speaking and made to squeeze past Mal into the tiny galley, headed for the perpetually brewing coffee. Mal had to push back in the close quarters to allow him passage. He saw Rafe and Tanaka's grins get wider. Rafe stood with his hands on the pot as Tanaka drawled, "As to that, I expect we could come up with something."  
  
"Can you lend us the use of your pocket knife, Mal?" Rafe asked from the galley.  
  
Mal reached into the pocket of his trousers for the folding knife he'd carried from childhood. He'd first used it to pull rocks from hooves and later for everything from opening a ration can to cutting primer cord. His hand came empty out of the pocket where it habitually lived and began to pat down his other pockets in search of the elusive tool. When he looked up, Rafe had come in from the galley with the coffee pot in his left hand. In the open palm of the right, held out for Mal's inspection, was the missing pocket knife, the watch he carried in a different pocket, as well as the few coins he'd had left at the end of the evening. Tanaka burst into laughter at the look on Mal's face as Rafe smiled in gentle satisfaction.  
  
"How did you do that?"  
  
"That's nothing," Tanaka chortled. "You should see him take a woman's bra off without unbuttoning her shirt."  
  
Mal grinned. "I'd say that would be some kind of party trick, all right!" He watched in appreciation as Rafe tossed the objects into the air and caught all but a pair of coins in his left hand. The two platinum coins landed in the right and he immediately began to spin them across his knuckles without so much as glancing at them. "So I guess we just need a way to get you into the ER, then."  
  
"Oh, no, we got that already." Tanaka said meaningfully. "He's gonna be escorting a drunk friend as got knifed in a bar brawl. Ain't you Rafe?" Rafe just nodded with his gentle smile and continued to roll the coins.  
  
Mal looked apprehensively at the other men and asked "Why do I have the distinct feelin' I'm about to get knifed?"  
  
"'Cause you always were a bright boy," Tanaka said with that same wolfish smile.  
  
Some time later Mal squinted down through a mildly alcoholic haze at the bloody ruins of his brand new shirt. Poking a finger through the whole on the left arm just above the elbow to explore the fairly deep knife cut on his bicep he asked plaintively "Tell me again why I have a hole in my arm?"  
  
"Look, Mal, we already discussed this," Tanaka said with the gentle patience reserved for drunks and children. "I gotta stay with the boat; Rafe's gotta lift the drug cabinet key, get the drugs and replace the key. You have to keep the medic busy. Stands to reason, you need a wound as at least requires some sewing. You know as well as I do, arm's best place for that. No major blood vessels, not deep enough to cut muscle or tendon and less painful than cutting your hand. 'Sides," he leaned over with a wicked grin and patted Mal's good shoulder. "We wanted something to enhance your standing with your grandkids when you commence to tellin' them how you became a smuggler. Dong ma?"  
  
"Well okay, then, since it's for the grandkiddles, lets get this show on the road."  
  
Rafe took the bottle of sake they had used as a primitive pain killer and rinsed his own mouth with it, throwing back his head to gargle before spitting the remainder on a handkerchief that he pushed loosely into his shirt pocket like a lady's sachet. As the finishing touch, he splashed a few ounces liberally about his person then they were ready to set off.  
  
As they rolled into the ER they realized it must be payday because it seemed like everybody and his dog Spot, had liquored themselves up and gotten in some kind of brawl or another. Then there was the usual old lady with whooping cough, the man who got bit by a dog and the tired woman with the howling two year old. The medical staff were getting run off their feet, and didn't have either the time or the energy to closely monitor one uninjured spacer escorting a minor knife wound in the midst of so much chaos.  
  
They sat in the waiting room a considerable time just watching the action, fending off the drunks looking to cadge a few coins and trying to ignore the neurotic hypochondriac who insisted on describing in excruciating detail all of the symptoms associated with his irritable bowel, while they waited Mal's turn with the medic. Finally, they caught sight of a nurse using a card key on the drug cabinet through the swinging doors to the treatment rooms. Rafe met Mal's eye and nodded casually, then got up and sauntered across the lobby to a water fountain near the door. He looked significantly at Mal then glanced towards the triage nurse seated at a counter facing the waiting room. Mal got up and ambled over at a stagger to lean in to the nurse's station.  
  
"Darlin' I can see you got your hands full and all, but I was kinda wonderin' if I'm like to see the medic anytime this week, cause this is cuttin' into my drinkin' time considerable. My captain's gonna lift soon, and I'll still be sober at this rate." He said with a cheerfully drunken leer.  
  
As soon as Mal blocked the view of the nurse, Rafe slid through the doors and into the controlled pandemonium of a very busy trauma center. Medical staff were moving purposefully from room to room. No one seemed to take any notice of him wandering among the treatment cubicles, as if in search of an injured friend. Doubtless more than one nurse had access to the drug cabinet, but he had his eye on the sure thing. When she came out of a cubicle at a controlled jog, he had his opening and put himself into her path. Catching her with profuse apologies as they collided, he righted her and the rack of tubes of drawn blood she carried as he lifted the card from her pocket smooth a silk. With his wide, disarming smile he moved away from her and the hubbub of the treatment rooms, moving toward the quieter service hallways leading to the hospital proper.  
  
Rafe found a rack of clean scrubs and grabbed a lab coat from a stack of them. He slid into a supply room around the corner to put it on. Emerging from the corridor in the lab coat he headed back to the ER striding purposefully. He approached the drug cabinet nonchalantly and used the access card without arousing the least interest. Then into the cabinet as easy as 'Bob's your uncle' and out with the byphodine. He dropped the white jacket in the rolling laundry basket by the supply room just as he saw Mal being led to a curtained treatment area. He strolled up to the room and bent to examine the floor at the open curtain, ostentatiously picking up the card as if it had just dropped on the ground from the nurse's pocket.  
  
"'Scuse me Doc, this something you need?" he asked, disingenuously.  
  
The resident was right in the middle of his sutures and pointed with his chin at the counter beside the treatment bed. "Thanks, don't think its mine, probably one of the nurse's. I'll ask around," he said casually. He was very fast, the stitches were small and neat and he was already finished by the time he said it. Nothing like a lot of practice to keep your hand in. "Keep it clean and dry. You should be fine. If it gets red or hot to the touch, come back. Drink lots of water before you go to bed, it'll help with the hangover." The medic went on to add matter-of-factly, "You might want to find another place to drink, in the future."  
  
"Or other people to drink with, I'm thinking. This was a brand new shirt." Mal replied laconically. Rafe grinned at him, thanked the doctor and they left without any further ado.  
  
By the time they got back to the Katy dawn was breaking. As Mal dropped his suspenders and pulled the now ruined shirt from his waistband, he winced and checked at the sudden movement, hissing at the unexpected pain. He collapsed on his bunk and bent to try to pull his boots off, finally managing to ease them off one-handed.  
  
He began to chuckle at the thought of what Zoe would say about tonight's little escapade. He could hear her dry comments as clearly as if she was in the room with him. "I leave you alone for five minute, sir, and you go and get yourself stabbed by your own troops. Couldn't you at least have put on an old shirt?"  
  
He sat in arrested motion on the bunk, one boot still in his hand as the laughter welled up. He was still chuckling to himself and wondering what she was doing on Shadow when he dropped off to sleep.  
  
After getting back from the hospital, they got a few hours' kip, then Tanaka and Mal went back to the bar and met Badger's twitchy friend. They were ready to put the second phase of the operation into practice. They got the details of the driver's daily schedule and name and direction of the tap room where he liked to have his nightly brew. Then they took up position outside the gate of the base at a local tea house, nursing a pot of tea and a plate of rice cakes between the three of them, for the contact to point out their man as he left the base for his lunch. A non-descript man of middle size in gray utilities, he entered a cheap noodle house and sat alone to consume a bowl of saimin. After observing him long enough for Mal to be sure that he would know the man when he saw him again they left, making arrangements to meet Badger's man at the loading gate when they got the truck.  
  
Tanaka was sending Rafe and Mal, figuring Rafe could spike the drink while Mal provided a likely distraction. "In the meantime I'll be having an alibi- worthy evening with Captain Teresa Rinaldi, mistress of the Esperance." Tanaka said with his predatory smile.  
  
At Mal's inquisitive look he elaborated, "The Esperance just got in port today, I've known Tess for years, the harbormaster is a friend of hers and she's got a game set up with him. I managed to wangle an invitation. Ahhh, a deck of cards, a bottle of whiskey, and Tess Rinaldi--pretty much a perfect evening." He said enthusiastically. "It's a tough job, but someone's gotta do it."  
  
Rafe met Mal's look with a rolled eye eloquent of his feelings. But but he continued without comment, to explain his theory about following a subject without letting the fellow know you were tailing him.  
  
"It's no trick to come into a place after your man's got there, but if he's twitchy at all he'll be checking out everyone who comes into the place after he does." Rafe paused to make sure he had Mal's attention and continued on receiving his nod of comprehension.  
  
"No, the real secret to following your man is to get where he's going ahead of him and be waiting when he comes through the door. He won't expect anybody already there could be following him. Stands to reason." He concluded knowingly.  
  
"And we're gonna be waiting for him, I take it?" Mal asked.  
  
"Well you are. I'll actually be following him so we don't lose him if he makes a change in plans."  
  
When Mal looked at him quizzically Rafe added, "Folks is unaccountable sometimes. Just cause a fella eats bai fan every day of his life don't mean he won't take a sudden notion to try jia xiang ji." Mal gave a soft chuckle in acknowledgement.  
  
"'Nother thing," the smaller man concluded, "don't try to fade into the background. Fellas up to no good do that. You want to stand out a bit, make a bit of noise. Nobody'd figure a villain would call attention to himself, so if you do, you ain't a villain. "Dong ma?"  
  
"You know Rafe, somehow raisin' a little hell has never presented much of a problem for me." Mal answered with his usual wide grin.  
  
"Yeah, I seem to remember something of the sort from Persephone." Tanaka remarked dryly, as Rafe gave a smothered laugh at the understatement.  
  
Before they left the Katy Rafe gave him a quick lesson in unobtrusively pouring the contents of a glass down the inside of his sleeve, causing Mal to finally break down and ask. "Boy, you gotta tell me how a deep space engineer and sometime Bowncoat gunner knows so gorram much about--well-- about the stuff you know so gorram much about!"  
  
Rafe had grinned mysteriously and said nothing but Tanaka had taken pity on Mal's mystification. "Rafe's daddy was one of the best all around grifters on the border worlds. He grew up in the business 'till his momma said her heart couldn't take the strain of havin' both the men in her life likely to rolled up by the law at any minute. They sent him away to school-what were you-sixteen, Rafe?  
  
"Fifteen." He answered dispassionately, "Papa retired by the time I got my first berth. They were livin' on Tian Shang when it was scourged at the beginning of the war. That's when I enlisted."  
  
"Wode tìan!" Mal grunted in sympathy. Early in the conflict someone in a position to set Alliance policy got the bright idea that it would bring the border worlds to heel if they were set a few examples. Alliance cruisers had appeared in the sky over worlds where Browncoat sympathy was strong and HKN-514 'planet busters' had been dropped. None of the planets chosen had any significant industrial or agricultural importance, or military value, come to that. The Feds in charge didn't want to destroy resources that could be useful after the rebellion was put down. The atrocities only hardened the resolve of the Independent forces. There had been an immediate outcry at the abomination. Even the Alliance core worlds were shocked and demanded immediate justice for the outrage. But by then three worlds were radio-active cinders, Tian Shang among them.  
  
There was really nothing more to be said as the three men sat in respectful silence, until Rafe visibly shook off the moment and said, "Best get you saddled up." Mal, his eyes suspiciously bright, cleared his throat and nodded in agreement. They left Tanaka in the galley staring into the bottom of a cup of cold coffee as if could find the answers there to the mystery of life.  
  
Mal got to the bar a couple of hours before their man usually rolled in for his supper and brew. He pulled a stool to the bar and signaled the barkeep like he was a man with a powerful thirst and a driving need to quench it. He started out quiet but as the evening progressed he had gotten more talkative. By the time their man turned up, he had become the kind of loquacious drunk who was telling his troubles to the barman, and the entire bar knew the mythically sordid details of his impending divorce. They couldn't help it, the way he was carrying on.  
  
He was sitting at the counter with a row of dead soldiers marching artistically across the bar. When the bartender had tried to take them away he'd stopped him, saying, "No, I'm gonna down one for every year we were together. I can't believe she'd just leave me flat like that. Didn't I love her? Didn't I give up other women for her?--Well mostly. Why's she gotta take on like that jus' 'cause I make up to some Fed as can get us on a better ship. She should know it don't mean a gorram thing. Women is jus' plain unreasonable."  
  
He'd dropped about half of what he'd ordered down his sleeve, and another quarter in the bar gutter when the man's back was to him serving other customers. He'd taken a couple of glasses to the juke box and spilled half their contents on the way there and back so he was fairly sober when he spotted their man come through the door.  
  
Mal was seated in the middle of the small bar. In the nature of things, later arrivals had courteously left space on either side as they filled up the bar. By the time their man arrived there were two open stools, one on either side of Mal.  
  
After a quick look around the room that seemed no more than the casual glance of a man at home, he strolled up, "Evenin' Joe, I'll have a dish o' mutton stew and a pint of ale," he said easily. The barman nodded and called the order through the open hatch as he pulled a pint of the local ale.  
  
Mal continued his interrupted conversation with the barman, "So like I was sayin', she took that ole pan and laid it upside my head. I thought I was like to meet my maker. When I came to, I asked her what in the Sam Hill she thought she was doin' and she said, sweet as you please, 'Makin' a point'. I ask you! 'Makin' a point!' Woman might've killed me, all to make a point!"  
  
Joe, the barman, nodded and continued to mop the bar with a rag. He raised a bottle as he silently offered to refill the whiskey that Mal had been drinking all night. At Mal's nod of acceptance he put out another shot glass and poured him a gill of the not-quite-rot-gut spirit.  
  
"I keep tellin' myself I'm better off with out her, y'know. But I miss the excitement. Life was always interestin' with Zoe. Yep, interestin'--You know like that Chinee curse; 'May you live in interestin' times'." Mal turned to survey the room and pretended to notice the mark for the first time, "Ya' ever have woman trouble frien'?" he slurred in his direction.  
  
The man was just getting his bowl of stew and shook his head without saying anything. Feigning a sharpened interest, Mal eyed the man speculatively. "Mind if I ask your secret, shu ren. 'Cause I asked every man-jack in this taproom that question and you're the onliest one as said he never had any woman trouble." Cocking his head like a drunk who just had a revelation, he added, "You're not sly are you? 'Course it don't make me no nevermind if you are. But the question'd have to be a might different then to have any meanin'."  
  
The man said economically, "Not sly, just not bothered." That drew a grin from the barman as Mal turned his theatrically shocked attention completely to the mark. Clearly relieved to cede the honor of being the primary recipient of Mal's pseudo-drunken self pity, the barman turned to re-stock his glassware just as Rafe entered the bar and looked around the room. Any one present would swear on a stack of bibles that the traveler had come in looking for somebody. When his eyes found Mal nothing could have been more natural than his start of relieved recognition.  
  
He approached and tapped Mal on the shoulder, saying, "Mal, Cap'n sent me to find you, he said if you are drunk or hung-over on duty one more time he's gonna leave your sorry ass on this rock. Come on now, let's get you back to the ship."  
  
Bleary-eyed and carefully slurring his words, Mal shrugged him off, saying "Drunk or hung-over there ain't never been a watch I ain't been fit for duty." At the same time he swung his shoulder away from Rafe's hand and artistically caught his elbow in both the stew bowl and the beer mug, sending them flying and splashing the mark and Mal liberally.  
  
"Ai ya, Mal! Dang xin! Now look what you done to the man" Rafe was the perfect picture of the mortified sober friend of an obnoxious drunk. "Sorry friend, Mal's been takin' it pretty hard since his wife served him the papers over the cortex. He was kinda hopin' she might change her mind, like she done before." All the while he was talking Rafe was using a bar towel to mop at the mark's utilities. He signaled the barman who came up to the trio and called for another bowl of stew and another beer. "Let me get this for ya, friend." He said in an apologetic tone.  
  
Mal grinned sheepishly as he said, "Guess I got more sheets in the wind than I thought."  
  
"Ya' think?" Rafe said sarcastically. "Now will you come away back and sleep it off, before Tanaka takes clean against havin' ya back on board a'tall?"  
  
"Reckon, I best at that." Mal said in feigned contrition as he laid a few coins on the bar. "That do ya' then friend, for the trouble I been to ya?" He asked. The barman replied with a smiling nod at the size of the tip. "Lead on then, Rafe. I'm right behind ya." He called jocularly as they rolled out of the bar.  
  
As soon as they left the bar Mal straightened out of his drunken lurch as Rafe melted into the shadowed doorway of a closed bodega to wait for their man to exit. Byphodine took awhile to take effect. The whole point was to be out of sight and out of mind of any witnesses before their man gave up the ghost. They waited in the gloom of the unlit street for over an hour, it was approaching twenty-three hundred when their man ambled out and turned in the direction of the Conservation Corps barracks. As they tracked him soundlessly for a few blocks, they saw him develop a pretty pronounced stagger, until gaining on him they approached from either side and each took ahold of an arm, swinging it over their shoulder they guided the bewildered and incapable man into a dark alley.  
  
To be continued--Chapter 9 


End file.
